The pace of change in retail right now is unprecedented, of that we know – we’re reminded of it every day, whether we’re retailers, consumers or working in the industry. We’re told that AI is revolutionizing retail until we’re blue in the face. It would be easy to believe all the hype. But who is creating that hype?
A look at the bets that Big Tech is putting on AI is revealing:
“We are pushing the frontier across our entire AI stack to drive new value for our customers and partners” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on their forecast $145 billion AI investment in 2026.
“We anticipate strong long-term return on invested capital” Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on pouring $200 billion into AI this year.
However, it seems that although it is true that we are shifting from vanity projects to real world use cases which need to deliver ROI, retailers don’t share the same bullish outlook as Big Tech.
“Don’t do AI for the sake of doing AI. …. know your business, know your roadmap, and really apply for the right reasons” Prat Vemana, Target Chief Information and Product Officer.
“Customers want to be helped in the right moment by the right tool. And if that’s a human, that’s a human. If that’s a chatbot, that’s a chatbot” Jordan Broggi, EVP of customer experience and president of online, The Home Depot.
So, what’s really going on here?
To discover this, we need to take a look back at some of the milestones which have shaped retail over the past century.
1. Self-service
The first was in Tennessee in 1916 when the first Piggly Wiggly store opened. The significance? It was the first time that we had served ourselves. Founder, Clarence Saunders realised something no-one else had at the time: serving each customer was inefficient, why not let them serve themselves and take payment when they reach the checkout? And so the modern supermarket model which exists to this day, was born.
2. The Barcode
The second major milestone was invented 30 years later but wasn’t used in a commercial setting until 1972 when Sainsbury’s deployed it. And that was the humble barcode. Just imagine where retail today would be without it? It revolutionised just about every aspect of the store and customer experience.
3. WWW
Possibly the single biggest event to impact retail up until that time came in 1989 when Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, with the first web page going live two years later. As a point of interest, Amazon.com launched in July 1995 selling books and nothing else. From a modest beginning e-commerce was born. Amazon revenue in that first year was a shade over $500,000, not bad for a startup. IN the year ending 31 March 2026, it was $716 billion.
As with all these milestone events, at the time, we had no inkling of the significance or the impact that they would have. And this is never truer than with our fourth entry.
4. Smartphone
It was at Macworld in January 2007 that Steve Jobs took to the stage and announced three new Apple devices: a phone, an internet explorer device and a new iPod. Except it wasn’t three devices, it was one. And the one was the first iPhone. Stop for a moment and think of the power of that supercomputer we all now have in our pockets and take for granted. Again, we didn’t realise it at the time, but this was set to revolutionise our shopping and consumer habits.
5. AI
We had to wait the best part of sixteen years for our fifth and final entry but when it came, it not only reshaped retail but our very perceptions of what is possible. It was November 22nd 2022 that Open AI launched ChatGPT for public use on an unsuspecting world; and conferences the world over were never quite the same again.
As we saw earlier however, Big Tech is betting pretty much everything on AI, retailers are more circumspect but there’s no doubting that of the five milestones we’ve covered, AI will have the biggest impact of all.
But here’s the thing.
Do we need it to, much less want it to?
As I write this in June 2026, the world is still very much punch drunk on AI and caught up in a whirlwind of a hype cycle. With no guardrails, no governance, no rules as such, it truly is the Wild West, and shows no sign of abating.
AI made way for Generative AI, which made way for Agentic AI (many other flavours are available). And what will come next? AI that knows or even predicts our thoughts before we’ve even thought them? AI develops a conscience and understands the concept of jeopardy?
Or have we unwittingly unleashed an AI which will view humans as an inferior race, and a threat, and therefore something to be extinguished?
If we haven’t already, we’re rapidly approaching a crossroads for retail at least.
Do we want an AI-led future, or a human one. I for one know which one I’d prefer.