Agentic AI isn’t a shiny add-on. It’s becoming existential for retail

At NRF 2026, the message was sober: agentic AI isn’t a demo, it’s infrastructure. SAP, Dunnhumby and Mirakl explain why data, stores and discovery now determine whether retailers remain visible, trusted and chosen. For years, retailers were told the future was digital, frictionless and screen-first. Stores were liabilities. Loyalty was a program. Data was something marketing worried about later. That story has quietly collapsed.