Canadian Tire and Microsoft Deepen Partnership with AI-Powered Retail Platform

Canadian Tire Corporation (CTC) is advancing its multi-year strategic partnership with Microsoft by developing a next-generation, AI-driven retail intelligence platform.

Designed to help the company better anticipate and serve the needs of Canadians, this initiative marks a significant step in CTC’s ongoing retail modernization efforts.

This represents a major shift in how the retailer operates, moving from traditional inventory management to a highly predictive, personalized retail model.

This collaboration underscores CTC’s “True North” transformation strategy—a modernization agenda launched in 2025 aimed at strengthening the retailer’s century-long connection with Canadians. By leveraging modern data and Microsoft’s advanced AI capabilities, Canadian Tire aims to move beyond simply selling products to proactively serving the distinct, everyday moments of its customers’ lives.

Introducing MOSaiC

At the heart of this expanded collaboration is MOSaiC, a custom retail intelligence platform built on Microsoft Azure and powered by Microsoft AI. Following a successful pilot in 2025, MOSaiC is now being scaled across CTC’s entire retail ecosystem, including its digital channels and brick-and-mortar stores like Canadian Tire, Mark’s, and SportChek.

The platform is designed to synthesize internal data—such as sales figures and Triangle Rewards loyalty insights—with external, real-world variables like weather patterns, seasonality, holidays, and local events.

MOSaiC is the flagship platform of this expanded partnership. It acts as the “brain” connecting CTC’s data with real-world context:

• How it Works: Built on Microsoft Azure, it utilizes advanced analytics, machine learning models, and Generative AI capabilities.
• Data Synthesis: It ingests internal data (sales history, Triangle Rewards data) and merges it with real-time, external datasets—such as hyper-local weather patterns, seasonal shifts, holidays, and local community events.
• Predictive Output: By finding correlations in this massive data mix, MOSaiC detects demand patterns early. During its pilot, it successfully mapped over 1,000 distinct “customer life occasions,” allowing CTC to preposition inventory and marketing rather than just reacting to trends as they happen.

CTC is also deploying AI-driven features on its websites and apps to improve product discovery and purchasing. This involves using machine learning for better search relevance, personalized product recommendations, and tailored digital content based on a user’s browsing and purchasing history.

Anticipating “Life Occasions”

MOSaiC moves beyond standard sales data analysis by detecting specific consumer demand patterns to generate insights based on local contexts and specific “life occasions.” For example, the platform can predict shifts in consumer needs driven by spring-thaw floods, back-to-school move-ins, or sudden weekend fitness trends.

During its pilot phase, MOSaiC successfully identified over 1,000 distinct customer life occasions. In 2026, CTC’s digital and retail teams will utilize these insights to better coordinate inventory, tailor product assortments, customize local store experiences, and launch highly personalized promotions.

The strategy aims to erase the boundaries between online and offline shopping. Insights generated digitally are used to inform physical merchandise assortments in local stores, personalize online user experiences, and customize digital promotions simultaneously.

Broader AI Integration and Employee Empowerment

Microsoft is providing the cloud infrastructure, AI modeling capabilities, and engineering support needed to facilitate MOSaiC’s enterprise-wide rollout. However, the platform is just one part of CTC’s broader artificial intelligence strategy:

DaiVID Platform

CTC has already deployed DaiVID, an AI-powered pricing and promotions platform aimed at improving customer value perception. While MOSaiC handles macro-trends and inventory prediction, DaiVID is an AI tool specifically focused on the micro-economics of retail.

It is an AI-powered pricing and promotions engine that dynamically analyzes what price points and discount structures offer the best perceived value to the customer while maintaining business margins.

Microsoft 365 Copilot & Employee Training

To accelerate internal decision-making and collaboration, CTC is initiating a national rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot for its corporate employees.

They are initiating a national rollout of Microsoft 365 Copilot for corporate employees. This integrates Large Language Models (LLMs) into everyday office applications (Word, Excel, Teams), giving employees generative AI tools to summarize data, draft communications, analyze spreadsheets, and accelerate day-to-day strategic planning.

To ensure responsible AI adoption, CTC is partnering with Microsoft and top business schools to deliver structured AI training to its workforce. Acknowledging that AI is only as good as the people using it, CTC is investing in structured AI training programs in collaboration with Microsoft and leading business schools. This ensures that employees know how to responsibly and effectively use these new tools in their daily workflows.