NRF 2026: The Year Retail Became Agentic

NRF 2026 made one thing unmistakably clear:
Retail has entered the age of agentic commerce.  

Not as a future vision or a lab experiment. But as an operating reality that is already reshaping how commerce is designed, delivered, and experienced. 

Beyond the scale and energy of New York, this year’s NRF stood out for the maturity of the conversations. The industry has moved from asking what AI can do to confronting what it changes structurally – and where humans still matter most.

Here are the reflections I brought home. 

1. UCP Is Changing How Commerce Is Designed

NRF 2026 was dominated by AI – and the signal moment came when Sundar Pichai announced the debut of the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP): an open, standardised protocol designed to power the next generation of agentic commerce.

UCP defines a common language that allows AI agents to connect securely and consistently with merchant backends – from product discovery to cart and checkout – across consumer surfaces like Gemini, AI Mode in Search, and future interfaces. The protocol is being developed by Google and Shopify, with backing from several large global retailers.

I had the opportunity to meet Ashish Gupta, VP/GM Shopping, who leads the 800-person organisation building Google’s commerce capabilities. His message was clear and consistent:

We have designed the protocol to cater to both the consumer and merchant.

Agentic commerce is evolving at lightning speed. What looks advanced today will feel basic a year from now. The product model itself is changing, enriched by autonomy, orchestration, and intelligence as core capabilities, not add-ons. 

UCP enables:

• Merchants to submit products using a defined, open schema
• Merchants to own the customer relationship and customer record
• Embedded checkout options that still allow for fully customised brand experiences
• Flexibility to capture customer data, including loyalty sign-up and authenticated sign-in, within the flow

In other words, agentic commerce does not have to mean losing control of brand, data, or experience. UCP is built to power agentic experiences across the entire commerce ecosystem – connecting intelligent consumer interfaces with business systems in a standardised, secure, and scalable way.

This is not an incremental upgrade – it’s a shift in the operating system of commerce itself. 

2. Human Leadership Still Sets the Standard

In a conference filled with AI and automation, one of the most impactful messages came from Ed Stack of Dick’s Sporting Goods.

“The higher you go, the more you listen.”

Stack described an inverted organisation, where the customer sits at the top and executives exist to support those closest to them. In this model, the person standing in front of the customer is the most important person in the company.

For brick-and-mortar retailers, this sets a very high bar for technology. 

If store associates are central to differentiation, the tools they use must support presence and confidence, not interrupt it.

Sometimes the “jerk” in the room isn’t a person – it’s legacy hardware or clunky systems forcing an associate to turn their back on the customer. 

The message was clear: Technology should be invisible – and make humans even more exceptional. 

3. Operating Excellence Has Become a Strategic Requirement

In a market defined by uncertainty, pressure on margins, and rising expectations, automation and efficiency have become strategic imperatives. 

This is where AI truly earns its place. 

Across NRF, solutions focused on operational excellence dominated conversations: 

• Advanced inventory management
• Demand forecasting
• Dynamic pricing
• Process automation 

Principles once associated only with Amazon and the largest global players are now being embedded across mid-to-large retailers. 

Crucially, this is not just about cost. When operations work better, service improves – and better service keeps customers coming back. 

4. Big Tech Is building the Intelligent Retail Stack

Microsoft, Google, AWS, and Salesforce are now unmistakably aligned in one direction: owning value across the retail value chain. 

Cloud, data, and AI are no longer enablers. They are the foundation. 

Across vendors, architectures looked strikingly similar, with AI embedded everywhere: 

• GenAI for content and visuals
• AI-powered shopping guides and natural language search
• AI-driven merchandising
• AI to empower store staff
• AI for inventory and replenishment
• Advanced analytics and decision support 

Everything is becoming more automated, more data-driven, and more intelligent. 

The competitive battle is no longer about individual tools. It’s about who can deliver the most coherent, end-to-end platform. 

5. Experience Is the Last True Differentiator

As technology becomes commoditised and content is generated at scale, experience emerges as the defining competitive advantage. 

The human factor matters more, not less. 

Stores are evolving into sensory proof engines – places that reduce uncertainty and build confidence. Touch, texture, scent, atmosphere, and real human interaction cannot be simulated by an agent. 

Experience is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s a strategic asset. 

6. Unified Commerce Is Now Non-Negotiable

True unified commerce was one of the clearest themes at NRF. Both customers and store teams expect seamless journeys across POS, e-commerce, customer service, loyalty, order management, and inventory.

Broken journeys and disconnected touchpoints simply aren’t tolerated anymore.

What we’re seeing is clear:

• New, cloud-native players entering the market with modern platforms
• Established vendors racing to modernise and form alliances
• Tighter unification of POS, Commerce, Loyalty, and OMS

Unified platforms are no longer a vision of the future. They are a requirement.

7. The Future is here: Drones at Scale

Some of the “2030 scenarios” the industry has discussed for decades are finally becoming operational reality. 

Drone delivery is one of them.

Google’s expansion of Wing drone delivery with Walmart to 150 stores — reaching over 40 million Americans – made one thing clear: this is no longer experimentation. It’s becoming a reality.

key takeaways

If I had to distil NRF 2026 into a few imperatives, it would be these: