Behlul Saka

Albertsons Companies is one of the largest food and drug retailers in the United States, operating more than 2,200 stores under brands including Albertsons, Safeway, Vons, and Jewel-Osco, serving tens of millions of customers weekly.

Behlul Saka holds a PhD in Industrial Engineering from the University of Arkansas and has built data science organizations across Walmart, Kraft Heinz, and now Albertsons. He expanded Albertsons' data science team from 1 to over 20 scientists and developed the Intelligent Allocation solution, which now operates across the company's retail network. His vision for AI centers on the shift from human-managed replenishment to agent-managed operations.

"AI will help each customer interaction to be more personal, where each customer will feel like the retailer they are shopping at is seeing and talking to them directly. When it comes to core retail operations such as supply chain and store operations, I expect agentic AI to drive more accurate customer demand forecasts and enable autonomous store and DC ordering agents where demand planners and replenishment buyers will only oversee the most strategic decisions on an exception basis," Behlul told AIM Media House.