EXCLUSIVE: Capgemini VP discusses AI impact on holiday retailing
Artificial intelligence is changing how customers shop for the holidays, as well as how retailers compete for their business.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Vince Crimaldi, executive VP, consumer products and retail, Capgemini Americas, about how AI, especially next-gen models like agentic AI, will transform the retail landscape this holiday season and what it means for the future.
How can retailers help ensure their products are discoverable by AI shopping bots for the holiday season?
During the 2025 holiday season, almost one-quarter of consumers used AI in their shopping behavior to research and evaluate products. They used it to think through categories and the products they were most interested in, and retailers are reacting to that.
Retailer optimization of their digital presence on the assumption that agents will be assisting consumers, or in some cases shopping on behalf of consumers, will significantly increase in the 2026 shopping season. Capgemini had a luxury global client which was optimizing its presence in the digital space for generative engine optimization (GEO), or the structuring of product content so it can be found and understood by AI shopping bots.
What they were looking at and realizing as a retailer is they needed to think about product content holistically at a brand level. They needed to prepare for consumers that will come from a lot of different sources because their own e-commerce site is only a small portion of the entire digital estate for a for a retailer, and they needed to think about all the ways in which they are represented in the market and then optimize those.
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At the same time, this retailer is recognizing that for the 2026 holiday season, consumers will have additional, more high-powered agents to act on their behalf. Think of Meta's Muse or ChatGPT.
Retailers also need to ensure their brand sentiment and awareness is out there, so they can continue to personally connect to their consumers even as agents may be performing increasing number of tasks on their behalf.
What do retailers need to do to ensure product availability and timely delivery for the holidays and beyond?
If you can build trust with your consumer and you can fulfill the product that they have found, you are going to continue to win business from them. This is now on turbo setting with AI.
AI has created a situation where consumers can quickly pivot to the next best product in their search if their first choice is not available with their chosen brand or retailer. This means having an effective engine for fulfillment, particularly this holiday season, will be critical.
Retailers can also use AI to drive better performance all the way up and down the supply chain, including with their CPG partners. We see this transformation taking place in terms of demand forecasting, inventory pricing and promotion, as well as the returns process.
How can retailers ensure they don't fall behind major competitors like Amazon and Walmart?
What Amazon and Walmart have done is created ubiquitousness in terms of their branding being everywhere - not just on the traditional web, but also on social media, paid media, TV ads - creating an opportunity that very few other retailers have.
But other retailers can compete by driving what makes their brand unique. This could be the emotional connect they have with their customer, their categories, certain products and services, or the way their brand has been represented historically, they need to capitalize on that.
Technology will serve as the enabler to offer free access to all these different touchpoints through APIs so customers can see retailers’ product availability, pricing, and promotions. Retailers also must ensure that consumers can quickly find them using generative engine optimization.
How should retailers prepare for the expected large volume of post-holiday returns in January?
Ease of returns is a key element of the entire customer experience. If a consumer has had had a good experience in returns with you in the past, that will figure into their shopping decision to some degree, particularly for larger or more expensive items.
Thus, building a good returns capability and accurately forecasting your returns for the holiday season are very important. Retailers are using AI to increase and enhance their predictive capabilities on returns, and they're using AI to enable and optimize the returns process.
How can retailers guard against return fraud without alienating their legitimate customers?
Next-gen AI has the ability to discover patterns and that's where retailers will turn. They will look at the patterns of returns rather than seek to pick on individual transactions with customers, particularly loyal customers.
What retail AI trends will develop during holiday season and carry into 2027?
Agentic AI is both shaping consumer behavior, which already started taking place during the 2025 holiday season, and retailer behavior, as retailers are driving agentic AI into every process from demand forecasting through price and promotion.
Retailers will see the benefits of this shift in terms of their ability to fulfill orders, and that will be the opportunity for them to be the new winners in the market. New retailers will take center stage because of their investment in AI and the opportunities that they have taken advantage of during the year to drive success this holiday season.
