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Serious Social issue it looks like...

Stephen Lebovitz, president and chief executive officer of CBL Properties, shares insights on technology's role in today's retail market.

With all the negativity swirling around retail these days, many investors and the media are running away from the challenging environment. But from our point of view, it’s just now getting exciting. The retail and shopping center business is undergoing one of the most profound transformative shifts in its history. With change can come growing pains, but also incredible opportunity.

Technology is a broad term, but the advent of technology and its continual integration into the retail landscape is the primary driving force behind this latest change. As the industry undergoes these shifts, understanding the new paradigm that is today’s customer journey is of paramount importance and nothing has more profoundly impacted that journey than technology. On the other side of the equation, retailers and shopping center owners are beginning to harness technology to create smarter and more dynamic environments to excite shoppers as well as drive greater efficiency and profitability.

There’s no shortage of technology trends impacting the retail landscape, but here are three that I am actively following.

Perhaps the biggest potential game-changer is artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is a term that’s especially overused these days, but most of us carry a form of it around in our pockets every day — her name is Siri. Perhaps the most ubiquitous form most people imagine when we think of AI is that of a robot. Whether it is the beloved comical droids of “Star Wars” fame or the far more realistic (and perhaps disconcerting) humanoid robots of HBO’s “Westworld,” the benevolent — hopefully, I’m looking at you, HAL — robot that is able to interact with us has been part of pop culture for many years. While most think only of these artificially intelligent “beings” as the stuff of science fiction programming, we aren’t as far away as you might think from their becoming omnipresent in our favorite stores.

Last year, Lowe’s introduced the LoweBot which is a bot that can greet customers and respond to verbal inquiries. If you ask for help finding a certain product, the LoweBot can guide you directly to it — which, for anyone who has tried to find one specific screw in a home improvement store can attest, is quite helpful. On the logistics end, the LoweBot is also able to scan shelves as it navigates store aisles, giving employees a quick and accurate snapshot of inventory levels. This is incredibly important given today’s digitally savvy customer who often researches products online before coming to the store to buy them. Making sure the store and web inventories match is crucial in servicing modern consumers, and artificial intelligence like the LoweBot can significantly reduce the gap in store vs. screen inventory.

The question on many people’s minds however, is will this type of AI eliminate jobs? Right now this kind of technology is incredibly useful when put in the hands of store associates, but it doesn’t replace the need for those associates. It simply helps them do their jobs better. Kyle Nel, executive director of Lowe’s Innovation Labs, said it best when asked that very question by CNBC, “Most definitely not — my phone doesn’t make me obsolete.”

Just recently, Business Insider and others reported that a new patent filed by Wal-Mart is for a robot that would identify unhappy shoppers. It would use facial recognition software to monitor customers at checkout lanes and, if it notices an annoyed shopper, alert employees in other parts of the store to help staff the checkout area. One of the hallmarks of AI is using advanced metrics to make smarter business decisions, and according to the patent, Wal-Mart will also be utilizing this technology to analyze trends in shoppers’ purchase behavior over time by linking facial expressions with transaction data to determine changes in purchases due to dissatisfaction.

Another advent in technology that is already significantly changing the way we shop is mobile payments. While adoption has certainly not reached critical mass for these “digital wallets,” according to an eMarketer study the estimate for total value of transactions made by a mobile payment will reach $210 billion by 2019 — up from $8.7 billion in 2015. That’s a significant enough share of total retail sales that many retailers have taken note, building out their own apps to enable mobile payments. Of note is Starbucks, which launched a mobile payment and ordering program last year and now has more than 8 million transactions per month.

Other retailers are adopting mobile payment capabilities through third-parties such as Apple, Google and major banks. Both are quality options and will become increasingly necessary as we draw closer to a true cashless society. Not only do mobile payments and ordering speed up checkout times in many instances, but they are more secure. The current chip system that most credit and debit cards have now comes hard-wired with a transaction code attached. If someone steals that code, they can replicate your card to make additional purchases. Payments from a mobile device, however, are able to bring software into play and can therefore generate a unique, or single-use, code every time a transaction is processed. If someone tries to replicate one of those codes it will automatically be flagged and denied as a stolen code.

The advancements in technology on the retail side get most of the buzz, however as property owners, we are also bringing new technologies to bear in order to improve the customer experience as well as provide our retail partners with enhanced information so they can create better shopping environments. CBL recently entered into a partnership with advanced analytics provider, RetailNext, to gain greater insights into the journeys that shoppers take through our properties. This will ultimately provide us with the same level of insights as e-commerce platforms about the purchasing habits of our customers. Additionally, it will provide valuable information about traffic flow patterns throughout our centers.

Are our tenant mixes currently optimized to the highest level of efficiency possible? Do we know if the restaurant that just came in has positively affected traffic? Which tenants have the strongest correlation for cross-shopping? Until now, as property owners we’ve had to apply a lot more art than science when it comes to answering these questions. The art side has its merits of course, but adding the scientific component gives us the leg-up we have been missing.

Over the past several years, there has been a disconnect — landlords did not have access to customer information gleaned from e-commerce platforms while bricks-and-mortar retailers did not have access to demographic information for customers in the common area. Through advancements in technology, that gap is decreasing and bricks-and-mortar retailers can increasingly tap into the same insights as their online counterparts. These advancements in technology coupled with the ability of stores and centers to create meaningful experiences through unique environments for the consumer position physical retail to remain the dominant retail channel. Yes, it will truly be exciting in our business over the next few years as retailers and shopping centers evolve to meet the demands of the modern consumer.

Stephen Lebovitz, president and chief executive officer of CBL Properties.

Israeli police said they had questioned a financier behind Academy Award-winning films

TEL AVIV—Arnon Milchan, an Israeli intelligence agent turned Hollywood producer, has long cultivated ties with his country’s leaders. Now, he has become a political problem for the prime minister.

Israeli police said last month that they had questioned Mr. Milchan—who has financed Academy Award-winning movies such as “12 Years a Slave” and “Birdman”—about whether he gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gifts in return for favors.

The investigation is one of two graft probes into Mr. Netanyahu that threaten his long tenure as Israel’s leader.

Mr. Netanyahu has denied wrongdoing. “It is allowed, according to the law, to accept presents from friends,” the prime minister said in response to questions at a January session of Israel’s parliament, after the probes were first reported publicly.

A spokesman for Mr. Milchan, who heads Los Angeles-based New Regency Productions Inc., said, “We have been careful not to respond on the subject for obvious reasons, whether the information is true or false and unrealistic.”

Mr. Milchan has had connections with several Israeli politicians over the years. Ehud Olmert, who later served as Israel’s prime minister, came up with “Pretty Woman” as the title for the 1990 film produced by Mr. Milchan, according to a 2011 biography, “Confidential: The Life of Secret Agent Turned Hollywood Tycoon Arnon Milchan.”

A spokesman for Mr. Kerry said it is “not uncommon for foreign counterparts to raise such issues with [State] Department officials, including the Secretary.” The 10-year visa was later issued, the former U.S. officials said.

Police also have said they are separately investigating Mr. Netanyahu about whether he tried to negotiate favorable coverage in an Israeli newspaper in return for weakening the influence of another daily. Mr. Netanyahu denies the allegations.

Ari Harow, the prime minister’s former chief of staff and longtime confidant, has turned state witness in the probes, police have said. Polls have shown that more than half of Israelis believe Mr. Netanyahu should resign if he is indicted.

Mr. Milchan’s New Regency is a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Monarchy Enterprises Holdings B.V., in which U.S.-based 21st Century Fox Inc. owns a 20% interest, according to financial reports and corporate records. 21st Century Fox shares common ownership with News Corp , which owns The Wall Street Journal.

21st Century Fox also sold a stake in Channel 10, an Israeli television station, to a company owned by Mr. Milchan in 2013, according to a spokesman for 21st Century Fox.

Mr. Milchan was recruited as an intelligence officer in the 1960s by Shimon Peres, who was deputy defense minister at the time, according to the 2011 biography and an interview Mr. Milchan gave to the Israeli television program Uvda in 2013. Mr. Peres went on to serve as Israel’s prime minister and president.

In his role as an Israeli agent, Mr. Milchan helped procure equipment from the U.S. for Israel’s secret nuclear program, according to the biography, which said Mr. Milchan served as an officer for Israel’s now-defunct Bureau of Scientific Relations.

Mr. Milchan’s business partner in the U.S., Richard Kelly Smyth, was charged in 1985 with smuggling materials to Israel that could be used for nuclear purposes. Mr. Smyth was charged with breaking U.S. export laws and spent 16 years on the run before being convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 40 months in prison. Mr. Milchan wasn’t accused of any wrongdoing.

Mr. Smyth, who pleaded not guilty to the charges, died of a stroke last month, according to his wife, Emilie Smyth. She said he maintained his innocence until his death.

In the interview with Uvda, Mr. Milchan said the episode “didn’t get me into big trouble. Almost.”

In recent years, Mr. Milchan offered to assist Mr. Kerry in his efforts to achieve peace between Israelis and Palestinians, according to former U.S. officials and Israeli politicians. In 2015, Mr. Milchan encouraged Mr. Netanyahu and opposition politician and then-Zionist Union and Labor party leader Isaac Herzog to form a national unity government of right- and left-wing parties that would signal to Palestinian and Arab leaders that Israel was willing to make compromises for peace, the people said.

Mr. Kerry had hoped such a government could then negotiate with leaders from Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia as part of a regional peace initiative he was eager to launch, although the then-secretary of state didn’t directly intervene in the Israeli government negotiations, the former U.S. officials and Israeli politicians said. Messrs. Netanyahu and Herzog negotiated for months but never agreed on the details of such a government, they added.