Tesco walked a public relations tightrope last week, announcing huge and indeed better-than-expected profits as a consumer-facing business in the midst of a renewed cost-of-living crisis. And while some certainly accused the supermarket of “cashing in”, on balance it pulled it off, showing essentially how the £3.1bn profit resulted from huge cost savings from job cuts, and investment in AI, automation and personalisation being fed into price cuts, ultimately leading to significant sales growth from contented customers.