Ahold Delhaize Banks on AI For Profit Boost

On Thursday, Ahold Delhaize (AD.AS), opens new tab and announced it intends to enhance underlying profits per share and savings over 2025–2028 by boosting digitalization and AI

The business, which operates the Stop & Shop, Giant, Food Lion, and Hannaford stores in the United States, as well as the Albert Heijn and Delhaize chains in the Netherlands and Belgium, expects underlying earnings per share to expand at a high single-digit compound annual rate compared to 2024.

The business, which also owns the Netherlands’ most extensive webshop, Bol.com, said it intends to save 5 billion euros by implementing AI and automation in its logistics, distribution, store operations, and back office while pushing loyalty-scheme members to its apps. 

“We intend to funnel loyalty customers from physical cards to our digital apps, which should yield a rapid increase in monthly active users, where we target 30 million by 2028,” the company stated.

The corporation exceeded first-quarter core profit margin forecasts. With the help of European performance, it confirmed its 2024 guidance earlier this month while expressing confidence that volumes would rise later this year despite slowing inflation.