For those of us who follow technology in the retail industry, we like to kick off the year with a bang. Every January we descend on New York City for the biggest trade show on the retail calendar, the National Retail Federation (NRF) Big Show. In 2025, this event was bigger than ever. I had a chance to join 40,000 of my fellow retail professionals at the Javits. I’ve attended this event for over two decades, and during that time I’ve witnessed a remarkable transformation from a hardware-focused event to the industry’s premier technology showcase. The show’s continued exponential growth, particularly since the pandemic, reflects the rapid evolution of retail technology and its increasing importance in the industry.
As a veteran of the event and industry, I found this year’s event particularly exciting and innovative. No hyperbole when I say the industry, especially from the perspective of the store, is experiencing massive, positive disruption that will change how we all shop. It was very exciting. So, what got me all excited?
Delivering the Promise of Unified Commerce/Omnichannel
One of the most striking things I saw at this year’s show was the maturation of unified commerce solutions. We are finally connecting customer experiences across channels and delivering a multi-channel experience for customers.
Some of the key technologies I saw that are empowering this are the many frictionless digital payment platforms that were at the show. These technologies are delivering great customer experiences to consumers and providing retailers with the analytics they need to drive better engagement with customers and build loyalty.
This year I noticed the “store” has made a huge comeback. I never bought into the “retail apocalypse” talk track. That said, store-based tech had been a bit thin at recent Big Shows as providers focused on digital engagement. Not anymore. One of the promises of unified commerce was the capability to provide customers with a seamless experience across channels. For a long time, the stores were playing catch up. Customers could research, shop online, pick up in store, and engage digitally with really elegant solutions. But when they walked in the store, except for some wayfinding applications, there wasn’t a lot of added value for the consumer.
A number of providers were showing this year’s in-store “smart” digital displays. These devices are creating seamless connections between digital and physical shopping experiences. Now, customers, device in hand, can not only find items, they can quickly assess inventory, find similar items, choose how they want to receive the products, and pay for their purchases in the aisle. The industry has also seen significant advancement in last-mile solutions supporting the “supply chain of one” concept.
AI: Promise vs. Performance
There was a lot of buzz around AI. Shocking! That said, there was so much AI messaging that retailers and attendees reported getting “AI fatigue.”
While artificial intelligence dominated the conversation at NRF, the gap between hype and substance remains significant. I grouped the capabilities of AI into three categories:
1) Real, demonstrated, ready for prime-time and able to deliver ROI
2) Great potential, but not quite ready for mass adoption
3)Still in hype mode – research potential, future possibility, will get there, just not yet
Real and Ready AI Capabilities
-Customer-facing team enablement – Using AI to give front line retail teams tools to assist customers with product information, product location, order help etc.
-Democratizing access to data and analysis – Generative AI is delivering insights to executives. Caveat, however: the IT team has to stay engaged to ensure the insights and data are real and the AI is not hallucinating.
-Finding discrete correlations in massive data sets – This was something we started using in the geospatial space with the introduction of Esri’s Big Data Tool kit. AI is empowering this even further by making the interface to these tools more accessible to everyone.
-Asset protection and loss prevention applications that can automate basic functions like monitoring video feeds and finding patterns in data to help with prevention and intervention strategies.
-Generating item descriptions for customer and team member facing applications like digital catalogs and in-store signing.
One of the best quotes I heard this year:
“AI has the ability to amplify and accelerate our work and make us smarter and faster. It has the same ability to amplify mistakes and accelerate bad outcomes.”
It seems “garbage in, garbage out” is still relevant.
Item and category demand forecasting was one of the capabilities that I thought had enormous potential but isn’t quite ready for mass adoption. There were several examples of companies using AI to enhance forecasts. However, in the cases I saw, the methodologies they were enhancing were using dated workflows and assumptions.
Customer analytics empowered by AI remains largely aspirational, with many promised solutions still working toward practical implementation. The potential is absolutely there, but most companies do not have a clear definition of what customer analytics is and how they will leverage it. There are a host of privacy issues that need to be addressed as well before this application of the technology can become ready for mass adoption.
Localization – Adoption of Localization Strategies Continues to Accelerate
The adoption of localization strategies is accelerating rapidly. The driver for this continues to be the need for optimization and incremental growth. Most retailers aren’t opening a lot of new stores. But at the same time, they need to drive revenue, grow market share, and react to competitive pressure. This means they must generate more revenue and attract new customers and more frequent trips with the locations they already have.
As we’ve seen in several studies with our RSR partners, location intelligence is critical to understanding customers so you can execute the merchandising, marketing, and loyalty strategies to drive revenue and growth in existing stores. Retailers of all sizes are standing up applications like GIS to help them manage localized data at an enterprise level.
Looking Ahead: The Store of Tomorrow
The retail store stands at a technological nexus, with significant changes in how technology is deployed across the store, especially at the shelf. Digital store technologies have reached a critical maturity point where they can be deployed at scale while remaining elegant and frictionless enough to enhance rather than distract from the customer experience.
We’re finally seeing the true realization of unified commerce and omnichannel retail, with in-store technologies providing customers complete experiences with their favorite retailers, from their devices to in-store interactions. Key developments include:
-Enhanced ability to understand customer behaviors across channels through AI and machine learning
-Improved capability to trace revenue to specific customers and households through mobile and in-store tools
-Seamless services for browsing, shopping, purchasing, and returning items anywhere, anytime
Conclusion
The retail technology landscape is evolving at an unprecedented pace. This year’s NRF Big Show demonstrated that we’ve reached a significant milestone in retail technology adoption. The industry has moved beyond proof-of-concept to practical, scalable solutions that deliver real value to both retailers and customers. As digital store technologies mature and unified commerce becomes a reality, we’re seeing the emergence of truly seamless retail experiences that promise to reshape the industry for years to come.
