From a meteorological perspective, the winter storm that swept across the country this weekend is a supply chain disruption in its own right: a high-pressure system from the north smashing into a low-pressure system from the south, belting large swaths of the US with heavy snow, sleet, and freezing rain.

While the snarl in the upper atmosphere could trickle down to the real supply chain on the ground, some retailers took steps to anticipate the impact of the storm and position their products accordingly.

Walmart, for instance, employed AI-powered technology to forecast demand shifts based on historical weather data.

“By utilizing advanced forecasting models and our simulation platform, we can anticipate shifts in demand and dynamically reroute essential supplies,” Indira Uppuluri, SVP of supply chain technology at Walmart, told Retail Brew.

Keep reading here.—AV

As snow piles up across the country, it’s going to be a relatively quiet week in retail. The World Economic Forum is over, and the Supreme Court won’t be issuing any new rulings until next month, meaning no indication until then on whether it will deem Trump’s tariff regime constitutional or not.

That being said, here’s a quick rundown of what’s going on in retail this week:

In earnings: The bulk of Q4 retail results are still a few weeks out, but in the meantime, a number of tech giants, credit card companies, logistics firms, and at least one major quick service restaurant are getting the ball rolling on earnings season. On Tuesday, it’s all logistics with UPS and freight rail company Union Pacific. On Wednesday, Meta, Tesla, and Microsoft are on deck. Starbucks is also reporting that day, and some on Wall Street are expecting a decline in earnings. Finishing out the week is Apple on Thursday. Many investors are expecting the tech giant to show earnings growth, as the company recently surpassed Samsung in smartphone sales after 14 years in second place.

Keep reading here.—AV

“We wanted to talk with companies about how they’ve dealt with unexpected AI complications or projects that just didn’t work out—what they learned and how they subsequently recalibrated,” writes Tech Brew’s Patrick Kulp:

David Glick, Walmart’s SVP of enterprise business services, said with AI coding, “we can spit out a prototype in less than a week.” But it will take weeks of product requirement research before that happens, and then weeks of auditing, security, and compliance after that before it can be deployed. Glick is hoping that AI will eventually compress that timeline.

Read the whole story here on CFO Brew.—PK