Three tech questions NRF 2026: Retail’s Big Show will answer
The annual NRF "Big Show" will once again serve as a bellwether for the direction retail technology will take in the coming year.
The National Retail Federation conference and expo takes place January 11-13 at the Jacob J. Javits Convention Center in New York City. As always, it offers the prospect of providing a good indication of the state of retail technology.
Here are answers to three key technology-related questions retailers should be able to take away from the event:
Agentic AI is the star of the show- will it outshine everything else?
In my year-end Retail Insights column, I called 2025 the year Agentic AI broke in retail and in my New Year’s column said it will be everywhere in 2026. And I stand by those pronouncements.
Agentic AI builds upon the prescriptive capabilities of generative AI to streamline enterprise workflows even further by analyzing massive amounts of data in near-real-time and then automatically taking action based on the results.
Naturally, this makes agentic AI a tremendously valuable solution in every area of the retail enterprise, and everyone already knows it will be featured prominently in almost every discussion in sessions and on the expo floor.
But how prominently? Will agentic AI itself be the main attraction or will speakers and booth reps highlight how it fits into other technologies, as well as into established workflows and strategies?
Broadly speaking, NRF conferences fall into two categories – “gee whiz” shows that speculate on what technology might do and practical shows that focus on what technology does. I’ve got the feeling the 2026 edition will fall into the second category, but we will know for sure very soon.
Robots on the rise – but more human than human?
Robots continue to become more prevalent across the retail enterprise, with Amazon disputing media reports in fall 2025 that it planned to replace up to 600,000 human workers with them.
What is not in dispute is the rapid spread of robotic automation in retail. Long a mainstay in distribution centers, robots are now increasingly performing tasks such as delivery (both last- and middle-mile), food preparation and service, cleaning and maintenance, inventory tracking, and even in-store customer service.
In October 2025, I wrote a column asking whether bipedal, humanoid robots might bring retail closer to a "Star Wars" scenario where humans and robots routinely interact, or if robots would continue to serve as automated machines with little or no human-like qualities.
Previous NRF conferences have featured a number of human-like robotic workers which for one reason or another never took off. And any possible "Star Wars" (or "Blade Runner") landscape is not arriving soon, but the types of robots being displayed on the expo floor will give a good indication of what type of robotic future retailers might have in store.
Who’s minding the store – and how?
Finally, the question of whether post-pandemic growth in mobile and digital shopping killed off the store has been answered (short answer – no). It’s fair to say that connected stores offering a "phygital" experience are responsible for a lot of brick-and-mortar’s continuing success.
However, there are a lot of ways to do phygital. Some retailers enable the store itself to provide an automated customer service environment, such as the Just Walk Out frictionless shopping experience from Amazon.
Other retailers provide customers with app- and kiosk-based access to extra information and services, or seamless fulfillment options such as buy-online-pick-up-in-store and curbside pickup. Many retailers also enable store associates to provide connected shopping services, such as "endless aisle" inventory checks, via mobile app or device.
The Big Show should also shed light onto which of these phygital retailing models is taking precedence, if some or all of them are equally popular, or even if retailers are combining different approaches in a "mix and match" approach.
