January 12, 2026
NRF Retail Big Show: The Move from Data to Decisions With Agentic AI
2026 kicked off with much discussion about the poor value of dashboards for decision makers. And CX and retail providers are already trying to resolve the issue for customers with more decision-focused Agentic AI tools.
And while builders are creating the tools, larger companies are partnering (see “Walmart and Google Integrate Gemini Agentic AI For A Stronger Ecommerce Customer Experience” or acquiring them to bolt those features into broader product sets.
Many examples are highlighted across the show floor at The US National Retail Federations’ Big Show, with Accenture first up, showing the value of agentic through an investment in Profitmind. Visitors can see it in action at Microsoft’s booth 4053.
The agentic AI platform is designed to help retailers automate their decisions for pricing, inventory and platform. Profitmind’s platform uses a network of intelligent AI agents designed to help retail teams connect the decision levers that typically operate in silos.
Profitmind is positioned as a bridge between insight and action. network of AI agents surface recommendations for pricing, inventory and promotions, offering direct action rather than a dashboard with no clear insight.
Typical results see a 21% revenue increase with a 14% uptick in profits. And working with Accenture gives Profitmind a broad new set of customers to address.
Clear Insights Are Fashionable
Another market in need of decision support is the fashion segment, with Athena Studio, an AI go-to-market assistant, offering up a solution for retail fashion product development.
Athena Studio joins up the tasks from creative design, merchandising and product teams, linking the tools both teams use and creates a structured view of the design project.
Athena addresses the issue where fashion brands make key decisions based on fragmented information from multiple data sources, various conversations across email and chat.
It addresses the root cause of much the delay and loss of velocity in fashion, the lack of a live, reliable data layer during product development.
Athena tackles this hidden tax on creativity by giving teams early visibility to improve decision making, creating a single overview within existing software like Teams, so there’s no technical overhead.
Making Decisions in the Move From Ranking to Relevance
One of the major events at the show is a master class on “The decision excellence playbook for retail leaders” from the likes of Tiffany & Co that should provide some clear insights.
Addressing these and similar themes during one of the keynotes, Neelima Sharma, SVP omnichannel and ecommerce technology of home improvement giant Lowe’s talked about the need to “meet the customer where they are. It’s now more about relevance than ranking, and a company’s ability to establish itself as an authority in its domain. It’s Moving beyond providing information to actually solving problems.”
“Of course, the consumer isn’t just typing questions and prompts into a search bar. Google’s introduction of AI Overview served as an inflection point, and it’s important for a company to show up in those overviews, too. In Google overviews, it’s not 10 different links,” Desai said. “It’s three things that come back at the top.” Companies and brands that aren’t included risk increasing irrelevance.”
Expect plenty more insight from around the NRF show as the key points of decision making and relevance appear in the changing retail landscape.
