The National Retail Federation's (NRF) first European showcase took place in Paris in September 2025, attracting 500 retail technology exhibitors and 12,500 executives and technology professionals from 58 countries to share their latest thoughts on the sector.
Unlike NRF Retail's Big Show 2025 will take place in New York In January, this new event was not overwhelmed by the hyped potential of artificial intelligence (AI). Although artificial intelligence was widely promoted at NRF Europe, the technology was portrayed in a more subdued manner – perhaps as a sign of growing recognition that artificial intelligence is a powerful tool that can operate behind the scenes and complement retailers' existing operations and processes.
Speaking at the event, Narek Verdian, CTO of Swiss sports shoe and sportswear retailer On, said: “AI must be powerful but quiet. We are experts in our field, and AI must first and foremost be a co-pilot. Our development team is constantly experimenting, and AI will be the driving force in everything we do with technology in the future.” This includes efforts such as using artificial intelligence to help 3D print experimental shoes.
Miguel Angel Gonzalez Gilbert, chief digital officer at Carrefour, agreed with this view, highlighting how widely AI is now being used in stores, e-commerce, warehouses and other areas. The latest move involves rolling out Google's Gemini AI tool to Carrefour's 300,000 employees worldwide. “Technology will be an ally. It's a fantastic tool… but we don't see our employees being replaced by robots“, he said.
There was also evidence in New York growing use of AI in the supply chainwith Nvidia suggesting that a combination of digital twins and computer vision can optimize throughput in distribution centers. Lowe's was a major retailer operating in this area.
At NRF Europe, Mark Irwin, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer at Best Buy, noted the use of digital twins to help the supply chain, which has undergone big changes as the role of the store has changed: 60% of all goods purchased online are now delivered in one day, and stores play a key role in this as hybrid fulfillment centers.
“We looked at what could improve this and created a volume of data that would stand up to artificial intelligence. Based on this, we created a digital twin to map this digital [supply chain] net. Since then, we have been able to reduce costs and supply chain volume even as inventory increases,” Irwin said.
Like its US counterpart, NRF Europe held a special showcase of innovators with a variety of products, including explainable ones (not about algorithms inside black boxes) such as TradeVerifyd. It helps retailers predict and manage supply chain risks by planning a product's journey from raw materials to the final product on the shelf, identifying any potential compliance issues and other risks related to weather, geopolitical activity and supplier disruptions. Real-time alerts and secure traceability enable retailers to act quickly and protect their operations. It also includes a tariff management module.
Another product unveiled was Kahoona, a digital body language system that attempts to identify the characteristics of the 96% of people who anonymously visit retailers' websites. Gal Rapoport, founder of Kahoona, said the company analyzes how customers interact with touch screens between clicks. “We can understand every user on a website and can get the marketing team to focus only on those people who are most likely to spend money. Agent AI needs context, and we provide it,” he said.
Along with artificial intelligence, retailers are finding increasing value in implementing unified commercial approach which centralizes all sales channels, back-end systems and customer data into a single integrated platform. Simone Dominici, CEO of beauty retailer Kiko, highlighted how this approach has helped create a holistic, consistent and personalized experience for customers across all channels and touchpoints.
The retailer works with New Black and its EVA platform, which is natively built on iOS and deployed on Microsoft Azure. It uses MACH architecture to enable offline commerce, point-of-sale (PoS) and mobile PoS. Beyond the challenge of bringing together 14 separate technology providers, Dominici said the project was comprehensive: “We needed to include the entire company, whereas it started out as [simply] technological project.”
Such scenarios are becoming increasingly familiar to retailers as they undertake transformations that invariably affect every aspect of their organizations. AI falls into this camp, especially when it comes to the data that goes into the technology. This is well known to Anika Voos, chief acceleration manager at Rewe Digital, who is tasked with driving the adoption of artificial intelligence in the German retail business. This included building an artificial intelligence platform with data and tools for internal use.
“It's like an assembly line for artificial intelligence… It's also about balance. You don't want chaos, but you also want to experiment. We're setting guidelines that give people some security. It gives structure and governance that leads to better data quality,” she said, adding that having leadership is important and informing them that AI is not a linear progression; that it starts out slow and then leads to exponential growth.
It was clear at NRF Europe that all of these technological advances will be heavily integrated into retail stores. Recognition of the role of the physical store was highlighted by research from Bain and VusionGroup released at the event, which found that as many as 75% of retail executives are planning store transformation in the next two years, with a particular focus on in-store technology.
Adoption of in-store technology such as kiosks and robots used to be low due to limited return on investment, but that has changed: Retailers now expect to double their investments in in-store technology over the next three years, and 44% of executives expect such commitments to boost profits.
Carrefour's Gilbert is certainly interested as the company's investments focus on increasing personalization, optimizing processes and efficiency, and incorporating artificial intelligence: “We generate 90% of our revenue from stores, so digital transformation has to be in stores. Three or four years ago we weren't talking about store transformation, but now expectations from customers and store employees are rising. We are confident in what we do. This is a unique moment.”
