In this Retail Reality Check podcast episode, host Claire introduces the theme "AI as your new storefront" and emphasizes that AI shopping assistants can now answer shopper queries and generate full baskets with checkout, but only if product, inventory, EDI, and ERP data are accurate. The episode opens with a promotion for IHL Group's upcoming 2026 Global Retail Loss Study webinar. Greg Buzek frames the discussion, stressing that clean data is the foundation before investing in AI. Claire then deep‑dives into several retailer case studies: Kroger’s AI assistant that uses shopping history and real‑time inventory APIs; Newegg and The RealReal’s integration with Google’s AI search and Gemini for in‑search checkout; L’Oréal’s AI‑driven marketing and partnerships with OpenAI, Amazon, and Alibaba, alongside a focus on data infrastructure; Sparrow’s multi‑year agreement with NCR Voyx to unify POS data across 300 restaurants; and Eataly’s connection of Clio’s EDI platform to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and its AI agent for inventory and vendor quality monitoring. Across all examples, IHL research is cited to show the prevalence of data‑related challenges (e.g., 46% of retailers struggle with reliable fulfillment, 40% prioritize system integration, 38% focus on data cleaning). The episode concludes with a rapid‑fire lightning round of 13 retail tech stories, including IHL’s new Hiring Demand Index, fulfillment center automation, programmatic ad buying, electronic shelf labels, AI‑powered robot returns, and more. The host ends with a reflective question: if a shopper asked an AI about your products today, would your data give the right answer?, and points listeners to additional stories and whitepapers on IHL’s website.
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A shopper asks an AI a question and gets back a full basket with a checkout button. If your product and inventory data is wrong, that basket never includes you. Hi, I'm Claire, your host. Thanks for joining this week's Retail Reality Check, a podcast on the latest tech installs in retail and consumer product goods. We provide hard data so you can make smart decisions based on IHL Group research. Before we dive in, mark your calendar! On October 20th at 11 AM Eastern, IHL Group is revealing the 2026 Global Retail Loss Study in a webinar called Beyond the Shrink. For years, retailers looked at loss prevention as only theft. Yet theft is just 25% of total retail loss. This worldwide study looks at theft, supply chain issues, organized retail crime, violence, and more. You will see the benchmarks, where the industry is heading, and how the economy is affecting loss. We start with an economic update on the state of retail. You don't want to miss it. The registration link is in the description below. This week's theme is AI as your new storefront. Here is how Greg Buzek frames it.
A great recommendation means nothing if the item is not on the shelf when the order is picked. Fix the data first. Now, Claire, take us into the deep dive on how AI is changing the shopping journey.
Let's start with Kroger. Its AI shopping assistant launched in July and uses shopping history to build baskets. Kroger is feeding increasingly precise inventory signals into its recommendations, with plans to share that availability data with partners through APIs. It is also focused on fulfillment reliability, so the products the assistant recommends actually make it into the order. IHL's Unified Commerce research shows why. Reliable fulfillment is a struggle for 46% of retailers, and sales laggards are 22 times more likely to report trouble getting real-time inventory data. An assistant that recommends items the store cannot pick erodes trust quickly. Fix inventory visibility before you invest in conversation. Next, Newegg and The RealReal are both teaming up with Google. Newegg uses Universal Commerce Protocol and Google Pay for checkout inside Google Search's AI mode and Gemini. The RealReal is rolling out its Ask TRR shopping agent to 45 million members. IHL's 2026 research puts personalizing the customer experience as the top technology priority for 58% of retailers, and it has led 7 of the last 9 years. When checkout happens inside an AI conversation, that personalization moves off your own site. Your product data and live inventory have to travel cleanly. Then there is L'Oréal. AI now guides nearly 20% of its marketing investments, and the company is working with OpenAI, Amazon, and Alibaba on AI-driven discovery while it strengthens its data infrastructure. Its toolkit already includes Google's AI overviews, generative AI content creation, and machine learning for ROI measurement. Pipes and plumbing matter here, and IHL's 2026 study agrees: 40% of retailers are prioritizing connecting and managing disparate systems, and 38% are focused on data cleaning, training, and storage. AI discovery rewards clean product information. So build the foundation before you chase AI search placement. Now to the store. Sparrow signed a multi-year agreement with NCR Voyx to put Aloha Next Point of Sale and Voyx Pay across nearly 300 US corporate and franchise restaurants. Built on the Voyx Commerce platform, the rollout centralizes data and improves visibility and resilience. In IHL's 2026 study, 42% of retailers cite refreshing POS infrastructure as a priority, and 37% plan a traditional POS hardware purchase decision, up 41% from last year. Putting nearly 300 restaurants on one platform standardizes the data that later AI initiatives depend on. Last in the deep dive, Eataly. It connected Clio's EDI platform with Microsoft Dynamics 365 to automate purchase orders and invoices. And it is building an AI agent that flags expiring warehouse inventory and analyzes vendor-related quality issues. It also added Clio's TM and M+ service for transaction monitoring and support. IHL's 2026 Inventory Distortion Study defines agentic AI as acting autonomously within set parameters and warns that systems working from inaccurate data execute bad decisions at machine speed. Clean EDI and ERP data is the prerequisite for any agent, Eataly adds next. 5 stories, 1 message: before AI can sell for you, the data underneath it has to be right. Now the lightning round! 13 top stories around retail from this week, fast! IHL Group launched its new Hiring Demand Index, a weekly read on retail and hospitality hiring across 942,937 stores. Store operations made up 55.6% of classified openings, and seasonal roles reached 7.4% of postings. Castle Resorts and Hotels unified 20 properties across 5 booking engines in under 4 months, and revenue per session rose 41%. Walmart opened its 5th next-generation fulfillment center in Stockton, California. Automated storage and retrieval cuts order processing from 12 steps to 5. Best Buy Ads is now offering advertisers LG's home screen and connected TV inventory, bought programmatically through Magnite and measured against sales. Angulas Aginaga now uses 80% of its Relex forecasts with no manual adjustment across roughly 4,000 SKUs. Hansshow and Kenti Adria are rolling out about 3.1 million electronic shelf labels across Konsum stores in Croatia and Mercator stores in Slovenia. Instacart and Skip have joined forces in Canada. Skip customers can shop Instacart's grocery marketplace, and Instacart users can order from more than 50,000 restaurants through Skip. Sprouts Farmers Market is adding Shipt for same-day delivery from more than 500 stores, including Shipt's Ask Shipt assistant that builds a cart from a description or a photo. Saver Logistics, Zalando, and Cyriact launched dual-arm robots for fashion returns in Germany and Poland. The robots sort items they have never seen before. Asda is using Rocked at checkout across its grocery and George sites. Rocked Pay Plus revenue grew 72% year over year, and conversion rates held steady. Sur La Table is now offering on-demand or scheduled delivery from its roughly 60 stores through Uber Eats, with orders arriving in as little as 25 minutes. Sportswear brand On used Google Cloud AI Agents to migrate 24 core services, cutting each migration from 3 months to 2 weeks. Red Roof reported a 44% year-over-year jump in app revenue, powered by HotelKey's cloud property management system, across more than 715 properties. So here is the question to take with you this week: if a shopper asked an AI about your products today, would your data give it the right answer? Can you properly fill the order? Want more details? There are 40 more stories and free whitepapers on our website at ihlservices.com. Thanks for listening, and I hope to see you back here next week.
