Agenda

As digital capabilities become central to retail strategy, leading retailers are rethinking how technology, data, and AI power the business from end to end. In this fireside chat, senior retail technology executives share insights from their organizations’ digital transformation journey, including key lessons learned while scaling ecommerce, modernizing technology infrastructure, and adapting to evolving consumer expectations. The discussion will also explore how AI is reshaping both the customer experience and the associate experience, and how a digitally led strategy can drive stronger organizational performance. Attendees will gain practical perspectives on building a technology foundation that supports innovation, agility, and long-term growth in an increasingly digital retail landscape.

Agentic commerce is no longer just a futuristic idea, and AI and AI agents are rapidly reshaping the ecommerce landscape. As autonomous agents start to shop and purchase on behalf of humans, the fundamental relationship between merchants and their customers is being rewritten. Agentic commerce introduces a myriad of risks for merchants – not being able to identify returning loyal customers, an inability to distinguish good agents from bad bots, and more. In this executive panel, Tapestry and Forter will share how to prepare for an agentic commerce future, while maintaining customer loyalty and mitigating the risks of fraud and abuse. 

AI assistants are rapidly becoming an indispensable tool for store associates -- helping them locate products, answer customer questions, execute tasks faster and deliver more personalized service. This panel session of retail technology leaders will provide attendees with lessons from deploying in-store AI assistants that drive real operational and business impact and highlight future priorities, based on their practical experiences with deployment over the past several years.

As AI, data, and digital platforms reshape retail, CIOs and CDOs are evolving from technology operators to strategic business leaders. In this candid discussion, senior executives from leading retailers share how they’re scaling AI, modernizing legacy systems, and unlocking the value of enterprise data. They’ll also discuss how the CIO/CDO role is expanding across marketing, ecommerce, and operations, while navigating talent gaps, governance, and pressure to deliver ROI on emerging technologies. Hear practical insights on how technology leaders are building the AI-ready retail enterprise.

Retailers are investing heavily in AI—but many are discovering that the biggest barriers aren’t necessarily technical. They’re structural.

As agentic systems reshape content creation, forecasting, fulfillment, and personalization, traditional boundaries between marketing, digital, IT, and strategy are blurring even further. Simultaneously, the underlying skill sets are changing—requiring AI fluency, data literacy, model oversight, and new forms of cross-functional orchestration. Without clear ownership and redesigned capabilities, AI initiatives stall or introduce new structural friction.

In this session, Dr. Janet Sherlock, Founder & CEO of Org.Works and former Chief Digital & Technology Officer at Ralph Lauren, will share her proven AI organizational framework together with new research findings on the future evolution of marketing, digital, and IT teams in the era of agentic commerce.

As answer engines reshape discovery, retailers must optimize not just for search – but for AI-generated answers. Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) and Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) require brands to publish precise, high-volume, structured content that AI trusts and cites. Increasingly, models rely on sources like Reddit, LinkedIn, and Quora – where a single outdated or negative post can disproportionately influence brand perception. Retailers face new risks: AI hallucinations, reliance on outdated or paywalled information, and shrinking first-mover advantage windows. This session explores how brands can audit AI responses, scale authoritative product and policy content, and prepare for emerging monetization models from companies like OpenAI. Learn how to ensure your brand is recommended – not misrepresented – when AI becomes the primary interface for product discovery and purchase decisions.

Digital marketers struggle to deliver timely, relevant engagement that drives measurable revenue, despite the abundance of customer data they possess. Fragmented data, disconnected channels, and slow campaign execution often prevent brands from acting on the signals customers generate every day. In this session, retail marketing and digital leaders will explore how modern data activation strategies are enabling brands to move from batch campaigns to real-time, behavior-driven engagement. Learn how leading retailers are unifying first-party data, orchestrating personalized messaging across channels, and using automation to respond instantly to customer intent. The discussion will focus on practical approaches to improving conversion, retention, and lifetime value—while giving marketing teams the agility to launch and optimize campaigns at the speed of today’s consumer. Attendees will leave with a clearer blueprint for turning customer signals into sustained growth.

Consumers aren’t just searching anymore; they’re asking. As product discovery shifts from traditional search engines to AI-powered chat environments, brands face a critical question: will you show up when customers ask for recommendations? This forward-looking session explores how conversational discovery is reshaping visibility, influence, and conversion. Retail and digital leaders will unpack how AI-generated answers differ from traditional search results, what it means to “write for AI,” and why structured, enriched product data is now a growth lever. We’ll also examine the emerging landscape of paid placements within AI chat and what it takes to compete. If discovery has moved, your strategy must move with it.

Retailers are under pressure to deliver personalized, frictionless experiences at increasingly rapid speeds. This session explores how combining AI with nearshore delivery models can help retailers accelerate transformation and scale innovation across the enterprise. Learn how AI can enhance customer service, enable faster decision-making, and power more seamless omnichannel experiences – from digital engagement to store operations. Through practical examples and real-world lessons, this session will outline how retailers can move beyond experimentation with AI to operational impact – while building the delivery model required to sustain innovation, improve customer outcomes, and drive measurable business results.