In 1965, The Who released one of my favorite songs: “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.” It was about personal freedom—this is the same year they released the iconic anthem “My Generation.”
“Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” is all about the narrator choosing whatever the heck he wants. And that sentiment seems to umbrella the modern retail experience. I can get what I want anywhere and in any way I want. And AI tools are helping retailers serve it up to you – and walking that line between whether or not you’re choosing or being persuaded to make that purchase. But I won’t get into that today!
When I typically review the NRF show, I focus on the macrotrends I’ve noticed. Here are a few of my previous reviews (surprise, AI has been a hot topic that continues to grow at this show).
Recapping my 2025 NRF Experience
4 Trends from the 2023 NRF Big Show
But for this year’s reflection, I want to focus on something different: In particular, what I saw from three massive brands: Salesforce, Shopify and Google. These three behemoths are all leaning heavily into agents and their role in the customer shopping experience. This January, Shopify and Google announced a partnership to amplify this experience for the hundreds of thousands of retailers who rely on Shopify for their e-commerce site.
And at Salesforce’s booth, I witnessed an intriguing demo from Janie & Jack, that showcased this journey from start to finish. The agent walks the customer from point A (exploration, looking for clothes and sizes) and then locates where they are and how to purchase these items–the agent, at the end of the demo, asked the customer if they should simply charge the AMEX on file to complete the purchase.
Effortless shopping. Maybe not great for our personal budgets but brilliant for retailers looking to maximize sales and enhance the anywhere shopping experience!
Our client, Linnworks, provides a connected commerce experience but on the backend for retail brands. To allow agents to offer up useful information like “that size and color of the shirt you want is within 3 miles of you, do you want to pick it up today?” you need to know exactly how much inventory you have and where. The ecosystem is vast and continues to expand as people take their mobile devices everywhere and are inundated with personalized ads (I’ve made purchases in 2025 because of these right-time, right-place ads, no doubt. And you probably have too).
Onto another major part of NRF: Food service innovation. Food is retail ($1 trillion a year going out to eat in the U.S. alone).
There was a super fun “NRF Pit Stop” experience where you could drive a go-kart through a modern drive-thru (I just had to share this photo):
Our client Acrelec works closely with major food chains to streamline and make the drive-thru and order experience as seamless as possible. They showcased their kiosks at partner Flooid’s booth – both companies are under the Glory brand umbrella. Acrelec has been discussing the drive-thru of the future over the last few years and it’s been fascinating for our firm to work with them closely as they shape the narrative and observe trends that continue to move the QSR industry forward.
If you’ve ordered through a drive-thru or walked into a fast food restaurant recently (and because we have two kids, we do it more than I’d like to admit) you’ve witnessed modern screens and ordering technology. There are some really innovative technologies embedded in some of these, including targeted loyalty offers, weather-based menu changes and other ways to maximize the ordering experience—much like those new retail agents help you shop for what you want, when you want it.
That’s the gist of what I gathered—retail has evolved from being something that offered you “choices” a decade or so ago—i.e. when “multi-channel” or “omnichannel” shopping were the buzzwords—to something that is masterfully targeted to predicting your needs based on readily available data about you and about what the retailer can offer—and then offering it to you wherever and whenever you are.
The question: Can you resist the temptation to make that purchase? I probably can’t 🙂