by Michelle Lodge, TheStreet (excerpt)

In this recent TheStreet article, Brian Solis comments on Digital Flywheel, a new AI-powered technology that Starbucks is using to suggest products to its retail customers. According to Solis, “Starbucks is one of the best companies in the world that connects brand, user and consumer experience between digital mobile and the real world.”

From the article:

Like it or not, what Starbucks has developed represents a smart melding of technology into e-commerce tools that will pay off long term for the company and drive sales, Brian Solis, a principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, told TheStreet in an interview.

“Starbucks is one of the best companies in the world that connects brand, user and consumer experience between digital mobile and the real world,” said Solis. ” They are still pushing forward, rolling out their Digital Flywheel strategy to be more dynamic to further integrate digital and real world.”
[…]

Solis is a fan of Starbucks, who sees it as a technology company as much as anything else, with solid growth potential. Any downward moves, he contends, are typical growing pains of an innovator and disruptor. “The fact that the stock has tumbled is a reflection of what happens in the face of disruption,” he said. “Shareholders tend to want shorter-term results, versus longer-term investments.”

“Mobile is one of many promises in which Starbucks is going to grow,” Solis added. “That is because we are on the forefront of a new movement in consumer engagement, which marries mobile, loyalty and sales with AI to deliver extreme personalization, which Starbucks, is priming itself for and consumers are going to start demanding more.”