Published : 17/04/2026 - 15 minutes read
Customer Success Stories
From AI Hype to Business Value: A Controlled and Literacy-Driven Approach
Retail Estates invests in AI literacy and cyber resilience
Artificial intelligence seems to be everywhere these days. From smart chatbots to automated reporting, there is no shortage of possibilities. But between hype and reality lies an important question: how do you deploy AI thoughtfully and extract added value from it without losing control? For Retail Estates, the answer did not start with technology, but with knowledge. With an organization-wide trajectory around AI literacy, the company consciously opted for a phased, controlled approach.
Retail Estates is a publicly listed regulated real estate company with more than a thousand retail properties in Belgium and the Netherlands. In the context of AI, Retail Estates faces a dual challenge. On the one hand, it wants to leverage the opportunities of artificial intelligence. On the other hand, especially as a publicly listed company, it must strictly monitor compliance and governance. “AI is currently in a hype phase,” says Amit Eitan, Director of IT at Retail Estates. “Everyone talks about it, but few organizations use it in a truly thoughtful way. We didn't want to simply ride the hype without careful consideration. We wanted to understand what AI could mean for us, but also what risks are associated with it.”
From hype to reality
For Amit Eitan, AI is not a standalone experiment, but a next step in the maturity of the IT organization. Over the past few years, he and his team have built a solid digital backbone for the company, including investments in ERP, reporting, and a streamlined infrastructure. AI fits into that broader trajectory, provided it is done in a controlled manner.
“As a listed company, compliance is crucial for us. The European AI Act requires organizations to work on AI literacy and clear governance. We wanted to avoid an internal proliferation of tools without policy or oversight.” That is why Retail Estates decided to allow only two AI applications in a first phase: Microsoft Copilot – integrated into the existing Microsoft 365 environment – and DeepL, a translation tool. The use of other publicly available AI solutions is blocked on Retail Estates' business equipment.
Across all departments
Important to know: the AI literacy exercise was not an initiative for a limited group, but an organization-wide process. In two half-day sessions, all employees – from management to support services – attended a training session guided by Inetum. “We didn't want a purely theoretical story here,” emphasizes Amit Eitan. “The approach was clear: what’s in it for me? How can AI concretely support my daily job?”
Inetum provided various inspiration and information sessions, each tailored to a specific business department. For the legal department, for example, this meant a session on analyzing and summarizing voluminous documents. The finance department experimented with analyzing Excel data and generating reports. The property team explored how AI can help sharpen market insight and combine external data with internal expertise. Tasks such as drafting meeting minutes, structuring information, or editing texts were also covered. A first session focused on raising awareness: what is AI, what can it do and what not, what are the risks, and what does the regulation say? In the second, more practical module, employees got to work themselves on concrete use cases. “The reactions were particularly positive,” says Amit Eitan. “Even colleagues who were initially hesitant quickly saw the potential added value of AI. That enthusiasm is essential.”
Licenses
After the initial introduction to the standard version of Copilot, the demand for more advanced functionalities at Retail Estates quickly grew. The company conducted a survey to know which employees were interested in the Copilot Pro licenses and eventually purchased 35 Copilot Pro licenses. “We monitor usage closely,” says Amit Eitan. “At this stage only quantitatively via dashboards, later on, after a few months of use, we will conduct a qualitative assessment of the Copilot Pro usage based on a questionnaire provided by the Inetum AI training team.”
This questionnaire will focus on how the teams at Retail Estates use Copilot Pro. “Does it effectively increase their productivity? Once we have a clear picture of the usage and the benefits Copilot Pro brings to the employees and the business, we will decide on the further expansion of our AI capabilities, all in line with our AI strategy.” In addition, Retail Estates will organize Copilot Pro advanced training – in the form of webinars – in order to enhance the employees’ knowledge and usage of the AI tool.
Retail Estates’ step-by-step approach fits into a broader AI strategy that is still very much under development. In the long term, the company aims to explore how advanced applications for enterprise AI can create value, for example by integrating them into the content management system or ERP platform. “But always with a proof of concept and a clear business case. AI must deliver value. Otherwise, it is just an expensive hype.”
Broader workplace and cyber security vision
This mindset demonstrates that the AI journey at Retail Estates is not a standalone initiative, but fits within a broader workplace strategy. For this larger whole—which includes IT infrastructure, end-user support, and cloud, among other things—the company has been collaborating with Inetum for some time. For instance, Retail Estates uses Inetum’s Azure Platform Services (APS) for the automated management of its Azure environment, with a focus on cost control, governance, and security.
In addition, the company opted for Workplace as a Service, with centralized management and security of laptops and mobile devices via Microsoft Intune. Retail Estates also adopts a structural and proactive approach to security, with Managed Detection & Response based on CrowdStrike Falcon Complete as the primary security platform for 24/7 detection and response. Continuous monitoring and rapid, targeted remediation allow threats to be neutralized within minutes, without impacting end users.
This is how Retail Estates anchors security: not as a brake on its business activities and growth, but as an essential building block for digital trust and controlled renewal. This structured workplace strategy forms the basis today for integrating AI in a well-thought-out manner. “We clearly see that Copilot is evolving into an indispensable part of the modern workplace,” concludes Amit Eitan. “But without stable infrastructure, strong device management, and a clear security framework, it won't work. AI must be given its place within the bigger picture.”
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