than most Australian retailers are currently operating. Half the expo floor was pushing some version of AI visibility, AI agents, or AI-driven personalisation. If your offering didn’t have AI in it, it stood out, and not in a good way. I spent the week speaking to retailers, tech providers and operators across the US market, and the takeaway was clear that AI isn’t innovation anymore, it’s the baseline. For Australian retailers, that shift matters more than anything else coming out of the event because locally, we’re still debating what AI might do. In the US, they’ve already moved on to using it at scale. AI is no longer the advantage; it’s the expectation There’s a tendency to think AI is where you differentiate. That’s no longer the case. At Shoptalk, it was clear the winners won’t be the ones who “have AI”. It will be the ones who have better data, execute better operationally and embed it deeper across the business. That’s because when everyone has access to the same layer of intelligence, differentiation shifts to how you use it. In practical terms, US retailers are already using AI to: Replace repetitive work across teams Generate and test content at scale Improve product data and reduce returns Make predictive decisions instead of reacting to reports Build and test solutions in days, not months In Australia, it feels like we’re still experimenting; in the US, it feels like it’s just operational. The US isn’t just ahead, it’s validating the roadmap One of the biggest advantages of attending global events like Shoptalk is the perspective they offer. If you only attend local conferences, you’re missing half the picture. Markets like the US are typically 12 to 18 months ahead. But more importantly, they remove uncertainty. In Australia, we’re still asking things like: Will AI actually improve decision-making? Is it worth investing now? How will it change roles? Those questions have largely been answered already and we can do away with the theories and look to the US because they are way ahead. For Australian retailers, that should create confidence, not hesitation. You’re not going first, you’re following a proven path. The real shift is speed The biggest change AI is driving isn’t capability, it’s speed. Across multiple sessions, one pattern was consistent: retailers are using AI to dramatically compress the time between idea and execution. Technology in the past has been for the small, nimble early adopters, but today the larger players haven’t fallen for that trick and are all over AI. Concepts are being tested within days, content is being generated and iterated instantly, features are being built faster using AI-assisted development and decisions are being made proactively, not after the fact. This has a compounding effect. Retailers are moving faster and outperforming those that are slow to the AI party. Speed is where the real competitive advantage now sits. AI is becoming the storefront One of the most significant ideas from the OpenAI and Wayfair sessions was that AI isn’t just a tool; it’s becoming the storefront. Instead of customers navigating websites, they’ll increasingly interact with a single agent across chat, voice and messaging. That agent will recommend products, answer questions, complete transactions, personalise the experience in real time and more. Some categories will move faster than others. Routine purchases like replenishment will likely shift quickly, while more considered categories, like fashion, will still rely on social and discovery. The chairman of OpenAI even suggested some transactions will never happen with AI, using his daughter as an example, saying that she will buy shampoo with AI, but fashion on social because it’s more about what her friends are wearing. In both scenarios, the direction is clear that the “front door” to retail is changing. Meta just accelerated the shift to conversational commerce Meta’s announcements reinforced where this is heading. The line that got the biggest reaction was simple: “No more link in bio.” Commerce is collapsing into content, conversation and creators. Product discovery is happening inside content. Messaging is becoming where the transaction occurs. Creators are increasingly acting as the storefront. This compresses the traditional funnel. It’s no longer awareness, consideration, purchase. It’s all happening simultaneously. For retailers, this requires a shift in how demand is created and captured. What Australia often gets wrong, and what comes next There’s a pattern in Australian retail. We often declare things “don’t work” too early because “we are different”. We said it about Amazon, and now we are saying it about live shopping. Locally live shopping has been tested and largely dismissed. Big W tried it and so did a few retailers in the beauty space, but globally, it’s growing rapidly. The difference is execution. In Asia and increasingly in the US, live shopping is entertainment first, creator-led, embedded within platforms, supported by native checkout and distribution. The model isn’t go live and try to sell. It’s create content, earn trust, live showing and then conversion. Australia didn’t fail at live shopping. We just dismissed it too early with the wrong execution. I suspect we will see a new wave in live shopping as Whatnot and TikTok trends hit Australia. Ebay is getting on board so watch this space. How Shoptalk’s Australia contingent are handling it The takeaway from Shoptalk isn’t to overhaul everything overnight. It’s to start moving. Look at global use cases and start executing on what’s been proven in other markets. Given the focus of AI at present, that means create a strategy that enables AI adoption and execution. Retail over the years has changed dramatically and it has never been the biggest that survive but the fastest to adapt. The human layer isn’t going away While AI dominated the stage and the expo floor, that doesn’t mean everything is becoming automated. If anything, the conversations off stage pointed to a more nuanced shift. There’s still a strong grounding in the role of human interaction in retail. After more than 30 years of e-commerce evolution, online retail still only accounts for around 20 per cent of total retail sales. That alone tells you something important, customers still value human interaction in many shopping experiences. That contrast was evident even walking through Las Vegas. You’d pass near-empty automated stores like Amazon Go and self-checkout environments, while traditional, staffed retail stores nearby were busy and full of energy. AI is changing how customers discover, evaluate and purchase but it’s not replacing the human element entirely. If anything, it’s sharpening it. The retailers who will win are those who use AI to remove friction, but double down on where human interaction actually adds value because retail isn’t becoming less human, it’s becoming more intentional about where the human matters most. A reminder from outside the industry This article was very heavy on AI, and that reflects the talks, the conversations and the energy at Shoptalk 2026. After nonstop conversations all day on AI, strategy and the future of retail, I ended up in a two-hour conversation with Snoop Dogg alongside a group of global retail and AI leaders. It was a reminder that while the technology is moving fast, retail is still a people game. Relationships, conversations and perspective still matter. Shoptalk didn’t feel like a glimpse into the future; it felt like a view of the present, and for Australian retailers, that changes the question. It’s no longer a question of whether we should invest in AI, but how quickly we can operationalise it before we fall behind. Further reading: Shoptalk Vegas Day 1: Gap, Sephora and Wayfair discuss retail in the age of AI