Agentic AI will continue to dominate retail in 2026. Brands and retailers will obsess over how they show up on platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity—because if AI can’t recommend your items, you may not exist for shoppers.

Just as retailers had to adapt to two-day shipping, then one-hour pickup, now they’ll need to offer AI-powered shopping experiences that feel as natural as chatting with ChatGPT.

Agentic AI will continue to be a talking point in 2026 because companies from Walmart to Google will be invested in it. Experts who spoke with Retail Brew said the next 12 months will lead to refinement of the AI tools that retailers rushed to launch in 2025. That’s because a lot of these new features will get better over time as more users engage with them. EMarketer projects AI driven e-commerce sales will account for 5% of overall online shopping in 2026.

“We anticipate 2026 to be a hockey stick year in terms of adoption of agentic AI,” Kassi Socha, senior director analyst of marketing at Gartner, told Retail Brew. “[2026] will be a building year, a building of inputs, a continued strengthening of content and experiences and actual adoption, not just announcements of agentic AI.”

Keep reading here.—VC

Shoppers spent a record $257.8 billion online during the holiday season this year, a 6.8% year over year jump, according to Adobe Analytics.

The shopping season, which spans November 1 through December 31, saw 25 days when spending hit $4 billion, besting 2024’s 18 days. Use of buy now, pay later methods also peaked this year, up 9.8% to $20 billion, posting the largest-ever spend day on Cyber Monday.

Online Cyber Week spend rose 7.7% YoY to $44.2 billion online. While Cyber Monday proved to be the biggest e-commerce day of the year, bringing in $14.25 billion in spend (up 7.1%), Black Friday’s growth actually outpaced Cyber Monday, with online spend jumping 9.1% to $11.8 billion.

Keep reading here.—EC

As a sponsor of Team USA since the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympics in Paris, Michelob Ultra’s approach to the Games spans multiple sports and athletes. But ahead of the Games in Italy next month, the beer brand is lacing up its ice skates as it prepares to throw its might behind hockey.

To put it simply, the sport is “a natural place for us,” SVP of marketing Ricardo Marques told Marketing Brew: Michelob Ultra is now a sponsor of USA Hockey, and has relationships with teams like the Boston Bruins, while fellow AB InBev brand Bud Light is the official beer of the NHL. Plus, hockey’s star has been on the rise, Marques said, pointing to the ratings success of last year’s 4 Nations tournament. Beyond that, there is some evidence of a potential Heated Rivalry effect on NHL fandom.

With the Winter Games set to feature NHL players for the first time since 2014, Michelob Ultra is planning for a hockey miracle, as well as some additional activations, to boost its sales, market share, and overall association with Team USA in the run-up to LA28.

Keep reading here on Marketing Brew.—AM

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