22 • July | August 2026 • abasto.com BY HERNANDO RAMÍREZ-SANTOS A specter is haunting the industry’s aisles: artificial intelligence (AI) will eliminate thousands of jobs in supermarkets. However, Juan Manuel Sa- ravia, founder of Ohla AI, a company spe- cializing in operational efficiency for large consumer goods multinationals, dispels that fear with data and perspective. “Quite the opposite,” Saravia stated in an interview with Abasto magazine. “What it will do is substantially increase the efficiency of the people who restock shelves today.” At Least a Decade to Go The executive was unequivocal during his speech at the 4th Latin Consumer Sum- mit, held in Miami: robots will not replace shelf-stocking workers in the short term. According to his estimates, it will take be- tween 10 and 15 years for that transition to occur on a large scale. In the meantime, AI will act as an ampli- fier of human talent. Repetitive and fully automatable tasks—those that currently consume valuable hours of field teams’ time, will give way to intelligent proces- ses. The worker isn’t disappearing; they’re evolving. Millions at Stake on Every Shelf Behind every package of tortillas or can of tuna that a consumer picks up from the shelf lies a multimillion-dollar operation. Consumer goods companies allocate enor- mous resources to ensure that products are in the right place at the right time. Saravia emphasizes that AI can radically transform this dynamic: saving time, re- IT’S HERE TO TRANSFORM THEM Artificial intelligence is already present in supermarket aisles. The question isn’t whether it will arrive, but whether store owners are ready for it. ducing errors, and optimizing the resour- ces that drive this invisible chain between the manufacturer and the shopping cart. The First Step: Understand Your Processes So, where do store owners and operations managers start? Saravia’s answer is surpri- singly simple: ask. “Make a list of the processes you’re cu- rrently running and quantify how many hours are spent on each one,” he recom- mends. Only then, he says, is it possible to identify what can be eliminated, what can be optimized, and what can be automated. Without that clear roadmap, any invest- ment in technology risks becoming a was- te of money. The Transition Has Already Begun AI isn’t a promise for the future; it’s a reality of the present that the most competitive retailers are already incorporating into their businesses. The window of opportunity to prepare is open, but it won’t remain that way indefinitely. Saravia’s advice doesn’t require large budgets or technical expertise to get started. It requires something more difficult: the wi- llingness to look inward, understand how the business really works, and act before others do AI Isn’t Here to Take Away Jobs at the Supermarket J uan Manuel Saravia, fundador de Ohla AI. • TECHNOLGY FOCUS