Retailers are increasingly using artificial intelligence to reduce the time between identifying an opportunity and acting on it. At NRF 2026: Retail’s Big Show Europe, examples of emerging technology highlighted how AI can support faster decisions in pricing, merchandising, customer service, and fulfillment.
In pricing, Profitmind uses agentic AI to continuously evaluate pricing, planning, and merchandising decisions. Batteries Plus reported a 240-basis-point increase in profit after optimizing against live competitor pricing.
AI is also being used to personalize product discovery in real time. Good Growth adjusts product recommendations based on customer intent, inventory, and margin during a shopping session. Its technology is being used by retailers including The Home Depot, Kohl’s, M&S and Dunelm.
Customer service and fulfillment are seeing similar applications. Nairos uses AI agents to answer product and inventory questions in real time. Electronics retailer Zoommer reported that response times fell from hours to seconds, while sales increased about 15% and customer satisfaction reached 98.7%.
In fulfillment, Starship Technologies uses autonomous delivery robots to shorten the time between ordering and receiving products. The company reports grocery deliveries in about 22 minutes and increased app downloads through deployments with retail partners in Europe.
The examples point to a broader shift in retail technology. The value may come less from collecting more information and more from reducing the time required to act on existing information.
However, adopting faster decision-making also requires changes to organizational processes. Retailers need to establish which decisions AI can make independently, what limits apply, and who remains accountable. Without those changes, faster technology may simply feed into slower existing processes.
