• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, August 16, 2017

Many retailers are keeping an eye on emerging technologies.

There was plenty of that tech on display at the annual eTail East conference in Boston this week.

Following investments in a few areas such as real-time marketing, retailers are looking at chatbots, IoT technology and beacons, based on a study released to coincide with the event.

The study comprised a survey of 550 leading retail executives conducted by IgnitionOne and Worldwide Business Research.

Top on the list of investments retailers are considering for next year is real-time or contextual marketing. Here are the emerging technologies retailers plan to invest in next year:

• 38% -- Real-time or contextual marketing
• 34% -- Cross-device identification
• 34% -- CRM onboarding
• 31% -- Chatbots
• 18% -- Internet of Things
• 13% -- Beacons
• 12% -- Virtual reality
• 11% -- Augmented reality

Based the exhibits at eTail East, retailers will be seriously looking at various ways to capture and analyze data, with a heavy focus on artificial intelligence, as I wrote about here yesterday (A/B Testing Vs. AI Conversions).

Meanwhile, it looks like they will be spreading their investment dollars across a wide array of connected technology.