Zia Daniell Wigder
Global President, Shoptalk
Europe’s retail leaders have moved beyond asking what AI might do. They’re now asking whether what they’ve already built is actually working.
While the debate about AI’s potential rages on, the executives I speak with across Europe are no longer asking whether AI will transform their business. They’re now asking whether the transformation they’ve invested in is delivering measurable results.
Margin improvements, personalisation at scale, smarter logistics — the proof points exist. But so do the cautionary tales of businesses that deployed enthusiastically without a clear commercial rationale. Among all the efforts to expand internal AI use cases, brands and retailers must audit what they already have. If a deployment can’t be connected to a commercial outcome, that’s an important problem to solve.
Commerce media’s fragmented frontier
Commerce media (retail media, plus its counterparts in industries like travel and financial services) is set to become one of the industry’s most significant revenue streams, with AI accelerating personalisation, targeting and attribution in ways that weren’t possible before.
But Europe’s fragmented landscape creates challenges. Commerce media requires audience scale to succeed, which is why the top players command such a large market share today. But retailers that are open to partnering across categories, channels and countries will find real opportunities to expand their reach.
The more powerful AI becomes, the more valuable a genuine human connection turns out to be — in stores, and in rooms where our industry gathers to figure out what comes next
Human connection paradox
The more powerful AI becomes, the more valuable a genuine human connection turns out to be — in stores, and in rooms where our industry gathers to figure out what comes next.
Perhaps the most counterintuitive truth of this is that technology is making human connection more important, not less. We see this in renewed investment in physical stores as experiential spaces; places that earn a customer’s presence and trust rather than simply process their transaction.
The same principle holds for how the industry learns and evolves together. The conversations that genuinely shift strategy still happen in person, between peers running the same business in different markets, exchanging what’s working and what’s not. That forum is precisely what we’ve built at Shoptalk, and why I believe it matters more than ever in an AI-accelerated world.
Shoptalk Europe 2026 takes place 9-11 June at Fira Gran Via, Barcelona. Register at shoptalkeurope.com.
