AI business technology takes on shoplifters and admin drag

In the faddish IT industry, new technologies often fail to live up to early hype and struggle to find a “killer” use case.

But for every blockchain or metaverse, other technologies — including artificial intelligence, cloud computing and workflow automation — break through to the mainstream and capture a share of corporate IT budgets.

These three business technologies feature prominently among the IT and software services companies which account for a fifth of this year’s FT 1000 ranking of European businesses by revenue growth.

Using AI to detect theft or fraud is a growing market for tech start-ups. In recent years, retailers have been hit by a wave of store thefts, sometimes involving violence.