The craze around AI in retail is real. And anyone looking for clear answers on how to execute an AI playbook needs to realize that agent-assisted shopping will take time to catch on.

Take OpenAI’s instant checkout feature, which didn’t land, primarily because people weren’t ready for it. However, it wasn’t necessarily a failure.

OpenAI launched its Instant Checkout with a handful of merchants on Etsy and Shopify in September 2025, and then rolled it back, letting retailers handle their own checkout, in March.

“We’ve found that the initial version of Instant Checkout did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide, so we’re allowing merchants to use their own checkout experiences while we focus our efforts on product discovery,” OpenAI said in a blog post.

During Retail Brew’s recent virtual event, Andy Szanger, director of strategy at CDW, said the issue wasn’t that the OpenAI checkout feature was broken or unsuccessful; it had more to do with the timing of the rollout. “It is really more of a failure of sequence, and more precisely, a failure to understand the difference between what technology can do and what consumers are ready for it to do,” Szanger said.

Keep reading here.—VC

Luxury brands may have found their next obsession—and no, it’s not China.

From Bangkok’s sprawling luxury malls to Singapore’s high-end shopping districts and Vietnam’s growing network of mono-brand boutiques, brands including Louis Vuitton, Dior, Gucci, and Hermès have steadily expanded their presence across Southeast Asia in recent years as they look to tap younger consumers, growing wealth, and booming tourism.

In Singapore, Marina Bay Sands has undergone an $8 billion luxury repositioning. Moreover, GlobalData estimates that Singapore’s e-commerce sector will see double-digit growth this year, climbing from an estimated $26.3 billion in 2025 to $31 billion in 2026.

Meanwhile Bangkok’s malls, such as Siam Paragon and Central Embassy, have become increasingly packed with luxury flagships and experiential retail concepts. Vietnam, meanwhile, has seen luxury retailers and distributors expand mono-brand and multi-brand boutiques in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi.

Keep reading here.—JS

Amazon’s ultra-fast delivery option is expanding to dozens of cities and millions of customers.

With a focus on everyday essentials and grocery items, Amazon Now delivers items in 30 minutes or less. The offering is currently available in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Seattle, and is now expanding to dozens more, including Houston, Austin, Orlando, Denver, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, and Minneapolis.

The offering complements other fast-delivery options such as one-hour and three-hour delivery, available for more than 90,000 items, and same-day delivery, available for millions of items, per the company.

Keep reading here.—AV

Video isn’t just for views anymore. Learn how top retailers are turning content into commerce by plugging video directly into their revenue strategy—no blockbuster budget required. We’ll break down the operational shifts, formats, and measurement strategies that transform video from a creative output into a performance channel that actually drives sales.

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