| International Journal of Computer Applications |
| Foundation of Computer Science (FCS), NY, USA |
| Volume 187 - Number 89 |
| Year of Publication: 2026 |
| Authors: Prithvi Raj Veluchamy |
10.5120/ijca2026926560
|
Prithvi Raj Veluchamy . Design and Evaluation of a Cloud-Native Hybrid AI-Rule Engine Architecture for Mission-Critical Retail Systems. International Journal of Computer Applications. 187, 89 ( Mar 2026), 24-29. DOI=10.5120/ijca2026926560
The retail systems that are a mission-critical need a fine balance between the creative flexibility of Artificial Intelligence and the strict dependability of symbolic logic. In this paper, discussed the design and deployment of a Cloud-Native Hybrid AI-Rule Engine specifically exploring systems suitable to high-stakes retail settings, including in real-time inventory reconciliation and fraud detection. This research uses a simulation dataset that contains four hundred and seventy-six data items that are illustrations of different retail transactions, consumer behavior, and logistical anomalies. With the help of a cloud-native system, the system is horizontally scalable and has fault tolerance. The tools that were used in this study are Kubernetes as a container orchestrator, dedicated microservices as a model serving system, and a distributed rule management system as deterministic logic execution system. The findings suggest that the hybrid method considerably performs better, compared to the standalone AI models, regarding explainability and can be used to cut the false-positive rates of pure rule-based systems. This integration offers a powerful framework that assists the retailers in automating complex decisions making without compromising on the business policies.