Agenda

Today's store associate wears more hats than ever - serving customers, fulfilling digital orders, managing inventory, supporting pickup, and more. As these responsibilities continue to expand, retailers are rethinking how technology can simplify work rather than add complexity. This session explores how mobile tools, AI, and connected workflows are helping frontline teams work more efficiently, make faster decisions, and deliver more consistent customer experiences across physical and digital channels. Hear how retailers are equipping associates with the information and capabilities they need in the moment, while creating a more agile store operation that can adapt to changing customer expectations and evolving business needs.

Physical stores continue to evolve, expanding their role and relevance. The ability to win over and engage customers and communities, enhance product experiences, and integrate hub functions in logistics, services, and media is driving retail innovation processes. AI challenges the store in its precision in assortment, inventory, pricing, and operation, and in the personalization of the customer experience. Learn from the experience of Wegmans and Boticario Group, two companies that have been innovating and expanding their store base.

62% of retail organizations have deployed agentic AI. Only 10% are completing autonomous work across teams — and store operations is where that gap is most visible. Brand directives go unconfirmed. Associate priorities are unclear. Store teams spend hours each shift on work that should resolve itself. In this fireside chat, leading retailers share what closing that gap is actually requiring: the infrastructure decisions, the organizational change, and what it looks like when AI starts finishing work rather than just starting it.

In luxury, a small fraction of clients drive a disproportionate share of revenue — and the majority of that revenue starts with an appointment, so every interaction counts. Join Kering, home to Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent, and Bottega Veneta, and Petra Schindler-Carter, GM of Retail & Consumer Goods at AWS, as they share how Kering built SARA, an agentic assistant powered by Amazon Bedrock and Amazon Bedrock AgentCore that lets sales associates retrieve products through multimodal search, prepare appointments autonomously, and surface personalized next best actions. You'll walk away with a practical blueprint for extending existing applications into agentic experiences.

Every year, retailers manage billions of dollars in excess inventory and returned goods — and most of it gets written off, liquidated, or destroyed. But a growing number of retailers are discovering something remarkable: that merchandise that can’t be resold is exactly what a family in crisis needs. Join Good360 and two of its retail partners for a discussion on how excess inventory and returns can become a strategic giving asset, and what that looked like in practice for the communities receiving those goods.

In modern retail, the customer journey no longer happens in isolation—it moves fluidly from online browsing to the physical store floor and last-mile delivery. In an era shaped by shifting consumer expectations and rapid AI advancements, leading brands must connect early product discovery with personal, real-time communication to keep buyers coming back.

This session brings together retail leaders, including Sharonda Weatherspoon, Senior Vice President of Retail Stores, Operations & Retail Development at Michael Kors, alongside Katie Stratton, Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at Shipt. Led by a Twilio moderator, we’ll explore how these brands support frontline teams, keep customers updated during order fulfillment, and connect digital interactions with real-world service.

Attendees will gain actionable strategies for eliminating friction across touchpoints, strengthening customer trust, and establishing the foundational data and messaging infrastructure required to stay competitive in an AI-driven retail landscape.

Gap Inc. EVP and Chief Technology Officer Sven Gerjets joins us to unpack how the retailer is embedding AI and agentic technology into every layer of the business – from product design and supply chain to marketing and the customer experience. He’ll share what it takes to move fast without losing the brand's human core, including lessons from Gap’s multiyear Google Cloud partnership and its early bet on agentic commerce.

AI is no longer a back-office tool – it's the nervous system of the retail value chain. This session unpacks how predictive analytics, agentic AI, real-time demand signals, supplier transparency, and dynamic pricing are converging to build retail operations that are faster, leaner, and more attuned to the customer - while positioning organizations for what comes next.

The future of retail will be shaped as much by unexpected disruption as by known market trends. Join Barry Raghunathan, KPMG's Consumer & Retail Technology Leader, to explore the opportunities and challenges that will define the next era of growth. From AI-enabled planning and predictive insights to fostering a culture of technology curiosity, this session will examine how a leading retailer is turning uncertainty into a competitive advantage. Discover practical strategies to drive transformation, make smarter decisions, and confidently prepare for what's next.