IBM is not just helping retailers adapt—we’re challenging them to lead. In an era defined by volatility, margin pressure, and shifting consumer expectations, incremental change is no longer enough. IBM partners with retail leaders to rethink the fundamentals: how supply chains sense and respond in real time, how stores become intelligent experience hubs, and how data becomes a strategic asset—not just a byproduct. With watsonx AI, hybrid cloud, and advanced supply chain orchestration, IBM enables retailers to anticipate demand, personalize engagement, and optimize operations end-to-end. We don’t just modernize legacy systems—we help you architect for resilience, speed, and scale. If you're ready to move beyond pilots and into enterprise-wide transformation, IBM is your catalyst. The future of retail won’t wait—and neither should you.
Monday Jan 11
10:15am - 10:45am
Exhibitor Big Ideas Stage 4
The customer journey is increasingly starting before a shopper enters a retailer’s store, website or app. Consumers are using AI to research products, compare options, evaluate value and arrive with clearer intent and higher expectations. As AI evolves from advisor to shopping agent, retailers face a fundamental question: how do you influence, engage and build loyalty with customers whose decisions may increasingly be shaped outside your own channels? The gap is that retailers still design much of the customer journey as though they own its starting point.
This session explores what the rise of the AI-informed shopper means for discovery, personalization, product information, store associates, trust and loyalty, and how retailers can rethink engagement for a world where both humans and AI influence purchasing decisions.
What the attendees will learn:
•Understand the intent customers bring with them - use behavioral signals and AI to move beyond traditional segmentation toward what an individual customer is trying to accomplish.
•Turn pre-shopping intelligence into better engagement - connect intent to discovery, recommendations, service and experiences across digital and physical interactions.
•Redefine the retailer's role in an AI-mediated journey - understand how brands can remain relevant and trusted when AI increasingly influences what customers discover and choose.
Monday Jan 11
12:15pm - 12:45pm
AI Stage by Klaviyo, Expo, Level 1
The first wave of AI made people more productive. The next wave makes the business more intelligent. As a retailer, your next competitive advantage lies beyond deploying another copilot or launching yet another AI use case. It will come from making AI part of how your business runs every day. As AI evolves from assisting employees to powering decisions and coordinating work across stores, merchandising, supply chain and customer engagement, the opportunity is no longer to do more with AI. It's to run retail differently. Join IBM to explore what defines an AI-powered retail enterprise. Discover how retailers are rethinking the flow of work across stores and the business. Learn how trusted agentic AI helps scale innovation with confidence, governance and measurable business outcomes.
Monday Jan 11
3:15pm - 3:45pm
Exhibitor Big Ideas Stage 4
AI is changing product innovation before a product ever reaches the shelf. Leading brands are already using consumer signals, trend intelligence and generative AI to identify emerging demand, inform design and formulation, and accelerate the journey from idea to market. IBM is working with organizations such as L'Oréal to apply AI to product formulation, and other global retailers to uncover consumer trends and inform product development and planning using AI and data. This session explores how AI is becoming part of the product innovation process - and how brands can combine consumer intelligence, AI and human creativity to create products that respond faster to what customers want.
What the attendees will learn:
•Spot what customers may want next- turn consumer, market and trend signals into actionable product intelligence.
•Bring AI into the creative and development process - use AI to augment formulation, design, planning and ideation rather than simply optimize downstream marketing.
•Shorten the distance from insight to product - connect intelligence with product-development decisions to respond faster to changing consumer demand.
