NRF Europe – AI quietly does it…

In September 2025, Paris hosted the inaugural European showcase event from the National Retail Federation (NRF) that attracted 500 retail technology exhibitors along with 12,500 executives and technology specialists from 58 countries to share their latest thinking on the sector.

Unlike NRF’s Retail’s Big Show 2025 held in New York in January, this new event was not overwhelmed by over-hyped potential artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities. Although AI was prevalent at NRF Europe, the technology was portrayed in a more measured manner – perhaps as a sign of growing recognition that AI is a powerful tool that can act behind the scenes and complement the existing operations and processes of retailers.

Speaking at the event, Narek Verdian, CTO at Swiss-based athletic shoe and sportswear retailer On, said: “AI should be powerful but quiet. We are experts in our field and AI should primarily be a co-pilot. Our product team constantly experiments and AI will be a driving force in all we do with technology in the future.” This includes activities such as using AI to assist with the 3D printing of experimental shoes.

Miguel Angel Gonzalez Gilbert, chief digital officer at Carrefour, was in agreement with this view as he highlighted how widely AI is now being used in-store, within e-commerce and in the warehouses among other areas. A recent move involves deploying Google’s Gemini AI tool to Carrefour’s 300,000 associates around the world. “Technology will play a role as an ally. It’s a fantastic enabler…but we do not see our employees being replaced by robots,” he said.

In New York, there was also evidence of a growing use of AI in the supply chain, with Nvidia suggesting the combination of digital twins and computer vision can optimise the throughput in distribution centres. Lowe’s was a major retailer active in this area.

At NRF Europe, Mark Irvin, executive vice-president and chief supply chain officer at Best Buy, cited the use of digital twins to help with a supply chain that has undergone great change as the role of the store has evolved, with 60% of all goods purchased online now being delivered in one day and the stores playing a pivotal role in this as hybrid fulfilment centres.

“We looked at what would enhance this and we built a data footprint that would stand up to AI. From this, we built a digital twin to map this digital [supply chain] network. We’ve since been able to reduce the cost and footprint of the supply chain, even with more inventory being held,” said Irvin.

Like its US counterpart, NRF Europe featured a dedicated Innovators Showcase with a variety of products, including some that were explainable – rather than about algorithms inside black boxes – such as TradeVerifyd. It helps retailers to predict and manage supply chain risk by mapping out the product journey from the raw materials to the final product sitting on the shelf, identifying any potential compliance issues and other risks from the likes of weather, geopolitical activity and supplier failures. Real-time alerts and secure traceability enable retailers to act fast and protect their operations. It also includes a tariffs management module.

Another product featured was digital body language system Kahoona, which seeks to identify the characteristics of the 96% of people that visit retailers’ websites anonymously. Gal Rapoport, founder of Kahoona, said the company analyses how customers interact with touch-screens between the clicks. “We can understand every user on a website and can get the marketing team to only focus on those people who are likely to spend. Agentic AI needs context and we provide this,” he said.

Along with AI, retailers have found increasing value in adopting a unified commerce approach that centralises all sales channels, back-end systems and customer data into a single, integrated platform. Simone Dominici, CEO of beauty retailer Kiko, highlighted how such an approach has helped create a seamless, consistent and personalised experience for customers across all its channels and touch-points.

The retailer is working with New Black and its EVA platform that is natively built on iOS and deployed in Microsoft Azure. It leverages MACH architecture to offer headless commerce, in-store point of sale (PoS), and mobile-PoS. As well as the challenge involved in pulling together 14 separate tech suppliers, Dominici said the project was all encompassing: “We needed to include the full company, whereas it started as [simply] a tech project.”

Such scenarios are increasingly recognisable to retailers as they undertake transformations that invariably touch all aspects of their organisations. AI falls into this camp, especially with regards to the data that feeds into the technology. This is well known to Anika Vooes, chief acceleration manager at Rewe Digital, who is charged with helping propagate AI in the German retail business. This has involved building an AI platform with data and tools for internal use.

“It’s like an assembly line for AI…It’s also about balance. You do not want chaos but you also want experimentation. We set up guidelines that give people some security. It gives structure and governance that leads to better data quality,” she said, adding that getting leadership on-board is essential and making them aware that AI is not about linear development but that it starts slowly and then leads to exponential growth.

What was evident at NRF Europe is that all these technology advances will very much be integrated into retailers’ bricks and mortar stores. The recognition of the role of the physical store was highlighted by research from Bain and VusionGroup, released at the event, which found that as many as 75% of retail executives plan a store transformation in the next two years, with a specific focus on in-store technology.

The adoption of in-store tech – such as kiosks and robots – had previously been low, because of the limited ROI but this has changed, with retailers now expecting to double their in-store tech investments over the next three years and 44% of executives expect such a commitment to boost profits.

Gilbert at Carrefour is certainly interested, with the company’s investment set to boost personalisation, optimise processes and efficiency, and include AI: “We have 90% of our revenues from stores, so a digital transformation has to be about stores. Three or four years ago, we did not talk about store transformations but now there are rising expectations from customers and in-store employees. We’re confident in what we are doing. It’s a unique moment.”