My NRF 2026 Part 1

Sharon Gai
Jan 22
5 min read

Updated: Feb 2

What does being at NRF feel like?

Well, have you been to a music festival?

There are stages everywhere, different speakers happening at the same time, and the whole place feels like a maze. NRF is basically the biggest music festival for retail. Instead of bands, you have brands! It’s the perfect forum for the companies that help power retail to take the stage and share their learnings and predictions for what’s to come.

The Excitement of NRF

Of course, since yours truly is one part ambitious and another part collaborative, I kicked off my NRF schedule well before the official start date. On Saturday, we started early at Capgemini’s New York office. The team brought together leaders and industry voices, including Nikhil Raj, CEO of MetaRouter; Shailesh Khadapkar, DSG Practice Lead for Consumer Goods at Adobe; and myself, with Capgemini’s Mark Ruston, Global Retail Lead, keeping us all in check as we discussed the future of retail.

AI's Impact on Retail

Saturday’s discussion at Capgemini focused on how AI is reshaping retail's route to market, from discovery and decision-making to trust and execution. Some of my key takeaways are:

Discovery is moving from search to anticipation

Retail discovery is becoming less intentional and more algorithmic. Rather than typing queries, consumers are increasingly comfortable letting AI surface options based on context, behavior, and past actions. Capgemini Research Institute data shows that one in four consumers have already used generative AI shopping tools, and 43% say they make purchases based on AI recommendations. This shift means brands now need to design for being chosen by algorithms, not just found by consumers. In fact, we discussed how agentic commerce will become a new space for ads and sponsored prompts that will try to influence our decisions.

I also shared my own recent experience shopping on ChatGPT for the first time during the holidays, which reinforced how quickly consumer behavior is shifting. Thinking I would get results from large, established retail brands like GAP or J Crew, I actually ended up with a small boutique Irish brand that simply had more AI-friendly pages. It was a useful reminder that in retail, discoverability increasingly depends on how well brands show up in AI-led journeys.

Frictionless journeys are now a growth driver

The panel highlighted that AI’s real value lies in quietly removing friction across the shopping journey. Consumers care less about how technology works and more about whether it saves time, reduces effort, and feels seamless. Capgemini’s research reinforces this, with 65% of consumers saying technology has made shopping less stressful, making speed, simplicity, and reliability table stakes for retail growth.

Trust has become a route-to-market constraint

As AI becomes embedded across discovery, pricing, and checkout, trust emerged as a defining factor in whether consumers are willing to delegate decisions. This matters at a time when 71% of consumers remain concerned about how generative AI uses their data. Retailers need to balance automation with transparency, clear guardrails, and human oversight to ensure AI-enabled journeys feel supportive rather than opaque.

Day 2: Focus on Food Service

Day 2 shifted the focus to food service and restaurants, where the conversation with Capgemini and their guests became much more focused on experiences. Along with Mark, we were joined by Amit Das, Global Client Partner at Capgemini, QSR expert, and Brian Crain, General Manager ROW, Impact Analytics.

The group highlighted how AI is being applied in very practical ways across QSR, from speed and throughput to consistency and customer experience. Several examples highlighted how brands like Chick-fil-A are experimenting with technologies such as drones to analyze drive-thru traffic, refine layouts, and reduce wait times. AI is increasingly used to optimize order accuracy, staffing, and menu recommendations in real time.

What stood out is how quickly QSR brands are moving from experimentation to execution. AI is no longer just about personalization at the front end, but about improving the entire restaurant operation behind the scenes, helping brands balance speed, value, and experience at scale.

For more on Capgemini’s report, you can check out this link.

The Official Start of NRF

The next day NRF officially kicked off. Over 50% of the agenda this year was on the topic of Agentic Commerce. (I guess when we introduce a concept like this, we need different sessions from different perspectives to define it for all, since it really does mean different things for different people)

Google’s Game-Changing Announcement

Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai used his keynote slot to announce Google’s new UCP - Universal Commerce Protocol that woke up the industry. Following in the footsteps of Perplexity and ChatGPT, the goal was to enable AI agents to shop on behalf of users within Gemini itself.

Here are some fast facts on why I think this is extremely important for the industry.

1. Why UCP is significant

UCP is similar in spirit to how TCP/IP worked in the early days of the internet. Back then, computers could not easily talk to each other because every network used different rules. TCP/IP created a shared language for how data is sent and received. Once everyone agreed on it, the internet could scale quickly, and new applications could be built without reinventing the plumbing each time.

UCP does something comparable for AI and commerce. Today, every retailer, payment system, and AI tool often needs custom integrations. UCP creates a common set of rules so AI agents, retailers, and payment systems can work together without one-off connections. That shared standard makes it easier to build, scale, and innovate.

It creates a shared set of rules that AI agents and retail systems can all understand. Instead of custom integrations for each partner, businesses can plug into one standard. This makes setup easier and allows AI agents to work more smoothly across different platforms.

2. Industry collaboration and ecosystem support

Google did not build UCP on its own. It worked with major commerce platforms and retailers like Shopify, Walmart, Target, Etsy, and Wayfair. Payment partners such as Visa and Mastercard are also involved. The goal is to make UCP an industry standard, not something only Google controls.

3. How it changes the shopping experience

UCP makes it possible for people to shop directly inside AI conversations. This is Google’s way of fighting back, after noticing a significant share of its users went to ChatGPT for holiday shopping (like yours truly!) A shopper could ask an AI to find a product, compare choices, and complete the purchase without opening a new app or website. Payments will work through Google Pay at first, with plans to add options like PayPal. Even though the AI helps with the process, the retailer still owns the customer relationship and handles the sale.