Introduction

Coresight Research is a research partner of Shoptalk Spring 2026, taking place March 24–26 at the Mandalay Bay resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. In this report, we present highlights from the morning sessions of Day 1, covering two themes.

• Agentic Commerce and AI-Driven Personalization—Retailers and platforms are using AI to move from reactive product discovery to proactive, conversational shopping experiences managed by intelligent agents.
• Retail Media Innovation and Omnichannel Data—Brands and retail media networks are using first-party data and new ad tech integrations to personalize at scale and connect media engagement with tangible sales outcomes.

Coresight Research Insights

1. Agentic Commerce and AI-Driven Personalization

Track Keynote: Using AI to Amp Up Personalization

AI is changing how personalization works, moving discovery from text-based search to visual, intent-led exploration. Matt Madrigal, Chief Technology Officer at Pinterest, said, “Taste is visual—you know it when you see it, even if you can’t describe it.” Pinterest positions itself at the earliest stage of the shopping journey, capturing intent before purchase decisions are explicitly formed. By reading visual signals, metadata and behavioral patterns, the platform constructs a “taste graph” to anticipate user preferences and guide them toward shoppable outcomes.

Half of the platform’s users are Gen Z, and 39% of them now use Pinterest before turning to Google. From a Coresight Research perspective, this points to a broader shift: personalization moving from reactive recommendations to proactive inspiration, driven by AI-native platforms.

Track Keynote: Building a Next-Generation Shopping Experience

The launch of new shopping capabilities marks the early stages of agentic commerce, shifting from product-led search to intent-driven discovery. Mahak Sharma, Product Partnerships, Search & Commerce at OpenAI, described how consumer behavior is changing: users now come with broad needs and constraints, looking to solve problems rather than searching for specific product links. The platform is launching flexible merchant pathways that allow checkouts both on- and off-platform, adapting dynamically to the user’s mission.

The interface is changing, but retailer differentiation still relies on consumer confidence. Anca Marola, Global Chief Digital Officer at Sephora, said, “Intelligence equals trust.” Sephora is building out its customer intelligence to create a conversational flagship experience online, extending its role as a trusted beauty advisor into emerging platforms. This introduces a real tension between platforms positioning themselves as the primary discovery interface and retailers trying to preserve their brand authority and customer relationships.

The New Retail Paradigm: Agentic Commerce & Supply Chain in the AI Era

Leading brands are pointing AI models at enterprise data to overhaul supply chains and operations. Ryan Ball at Anthropic noted that the state of AI changed six months ago, moving from question-and-answer assistants to agents capable of deep research and autonomous work.

David Hardiman-Evans at Ocado put it plainly: fully automated grocery fulfillment through robotics would not be possible without the leap AI represents. Nitin Murali at Gallo built supply chain and demand intelligence applications with zero coding experience and surfaced insights the company had never seen before. Murali noted that all of it was built using Claude.

Building and Deploying AI Agents

The best-performing AI agents will be specialized and coordinated, with humans managing humans, agents and human-agent teams. Jason Cottrell, CEO at Orium, said enterprises need to use both internally developed and external technology expertise, because they cannot easily replicate the product of entire companies developing a single platform. Robert Ibarguen, Head of Digital Intelligence at Newell Brands, noted that a single generative AI project can spin off benefits and insights for teams well outside its original scope. For example, an automated sentiment engine for ratings and reviews evolved to provide action-oriented insights for innovation and other teams. Data gaps are likely inevitable, but synthetic data can help bridge them.

Track Keynote: Sorting Agentic Hype from Reality

Agentic technologies are set to become the new digital front door for retailers, bringing telephone and online customer support under one roof. Bret Taylor, Co-Founder and CEO at Sierra, and Chairman of the Board at OpenAI, predicted that every retailer’s AI agent will eventually become as important as their website and mobile app. Taylor said that forcing customers to wait on hold is disrespectful, and that deploying faster, cheaper AI agents for functional inquiries frees up budget for human-touch experiences. Taylor also said AI will see more use for intimidating, considered purchases, and warned that if an AI platform provides a better discovery experience, consumers will bypass the retailer’s website entirely.Taylor pointed to deployments already under way. Nordstrom launched an AI agent ahead of Black Friday; Taylor also described a footwear retailer whose agent allows customers to photograph damaged shoes, adjudicates the claim instantly and ships a replacement within 30 seconds. These, he argued, are the moments where brand loyalty is actually built or lost.

Startup Pitch: Technologies Reinventing Customer Experience

Startups are building the tools this agentic future will need. In the Startup Pitch, Deborah Weinswig,CEO and Founder at Coresight Research, noted that companies can “use AI to pay for AI” by eliminating existing costs and frictions. The Startup Pitch saw 10 innovators pitch for the Judges’ Choice and Audience Choice winners, with the former receiving an optional $100,000 in funding from Commerce Ventures and the latter receiving $100,000 of research and services from Coresight Research—see our Startup Pitch preview report here.

Max Sinclair, Founder & CEO at Azoma, introduced an Agentic Merchant Protocol designed to help brands get recommended more frequently on AI agents, combating the shrinking digital shelf. Rajan Balasundaram, CEO at Bayezon AI, showed a platform that connects intent, context and product data to bypass the current consumer browsing model. Vita Mallela of Flock AI showed a custom-built tool for fashion brands that creates on-brand content at one-tenth the cost of a traditional photoshoot. Ben Seidl, Co-Founder and CEO at Autolane, presented a hardware-enabled software platform that positions autonomous vehicles as the delivery infrastructure of the future, using a smart curbside sign to coordinate across self-driving platforms and connect them to retailers, restaurants and shopping centers—projecting 10 million autonomous vehicles on the road by 2030. Anna Liang, Founder and CEO at SocialQ AI, addressed the social commerce challenge for small and midsize businesses, presenting a platform that creates on-brand content and publishes it automatically, delivering what Liang described as agency-level outcomes for brands that lack the budget for an agency.

Startup Pitch: Technologies Driving Operational Efficiencies

A second session of the Startup Pitch focused on back-of-house operations. Weinswig noted that, at Coresight Research, we are covering how AI can help retailers achieve greater productivity in retail—see our new report here—and that this theme was relevant for a number of the participating Startup Pitch companies. Weinswig noted that retailers should consider how they are sequencing for AI productivity gains and where they are investing.

Coframe, the only technology company with a direct partnership with OpenAI, presented an AI-driven conversion rate optimization platform that enables websites to test and optimize themselves continuously. Ethosphere introduced microphone technology for store environments that analyzes associate-guest interactions, generating personalized coaching for associates, management tools for store managers and brand-level insight into what drives sales on the floor. MerchKit addressed the product discovery challenge posed by agentic commerce, building a catalog platform that continuously audits product content against the specific attribute requirements of individual AI platforms and LLMs. RateRunners targets shipping cost leakage, checking every shipment against carrier invoices to catch billing errors and recover disputed charges. ShopSight presented a demand forecasting platform that co-creates new product concepts with customers in real time, allowing brands to test demand before committing to a production run.

The winners of the Startup Pitch competition were:

• Judges’ Choice: Coframe
• Audience Choice: Flock AI

2. Retail Media Innovation and Omnichannel Data

Retail Media Innovation: Retailer + Brand Case Studies

Commerce media runs on first-party data. Taryn Dominie, Head of Industry at Orange Apron Media, a division of The Home Depot, said translating shopping signals enables personalized media for diverse demographics, including Spanish-speaking customers and the next generation of Millennial and Gen Z homeowners. The partnership with Behr Paint Company has produced a 36% increase in purchase intent, Dominie noted. Andy Lopez, SVP & Head of Global Marketing at Behr Paint Company, said Orange Apron Media builds custom audience datasets to reach their professional buyers.

Ad tech integrations are also addressing interoperability friction and closing the gap between top-funnel engagement and bottom-funnel sales. Andrew Hotz, Director, Consumer Brands, Government & Entertainment at Google, discussed a first-of-its-kind integration allowing a retail partner to pull audience signals and apply them anywhere on the web, including YouTube. Google touches approximately 86% of all purchase journeys, Hotz noted, including through AI overviews in search now reaching 2 billion people worldwide. Christine Foster, SVP, Kroger Precision Marketing at The Kroger Co., confirmed this partnership lets grocery data inform campaigns at mass scale while measuring outcomes down to the SKU level. “If you know the cart, you know the heart,” said Christine Foster, SVP, Kroger Precision Marketing at The Kroger Co. Foster also noted that YouTube sees approximately 90 million hours of shopping video watched, which Google plans to connect directly to measurable sales outcomes, reducing waste across the ecosystem in the process.