AI dominated the buzz at Shoptalk Spring

Retailers at Shoptalk Spring in Las Vegas this week were desperately seeking an AI playbook. The vast majority of attendees had questions about the hype-versus-reality of agentic commerce, or agent-assisted shopping.

Shoptalk, which ran from March 24 to March 26 at Mandalay Bay, featured a buzzy array of AI announcements from tech giants including OpenAI and Google. Brands and retailers seemed to realize that agentic commerce is a new front door consumers are using, and the conversation moved from “How do we build something?” to “How do we build something useful?”

The buzz around agentic AI started at NRF two and a half months ago, and people at Shoptalk were still looking for answers to questions like: Will people really hand over shopping to AI agents, even if the technology makes it seamless and easy? However, there was still no real consensus.

Ret(AI)l therapy: Google went big on agentic commerce—literally—taking over the walkway with a massive e-billboard attendees couldn’t miss.

OpenAI rolled out a new shopping experience on ChatGPT that can browse and compare items, and drop relevant product information all in one place. It’s a revised version of OpenAI’s Agentic Commerce Protocol, which delivers real-time product data from merchants—including Target, Sephora, Nordstrom, The Home Depot, Best Buy, and Wayfair—directly into ChatGPT.

Meanwhile, Gap said it is partnering with Google to let people complete purchases directly within AI agent Gemini, becoming the first major fashion brand to collaborate with Google on agent-driven AI commerce. And beauty retailer Sephora said it is rethinking its beauty shopping experience with the launch of its app in ChatGPT.

“People that were never involved in retail directly—like Google, they were always kind of side-involved, and ChatGPT—coming here and dropping news, so it’s exciting,” Scot Wingo, CEO of AI startup Refibuy, told Retail Brew. “They see the [retail] vertical is really important for the initiatives they’re trying to drive around AI.”

OpenAI is also phasing out its instant checkout feature and letting merchants use their own checkout.

“We’re in the early days of AI commerce in general and agentic commerce,” Mahak Sharma, product partnerships at OpenAI, told Retail Brew. “And just like any technology has its adoption cycle and timelines, we are in that cycle as well.”

“It takes time to change user behavior and do it in a way that the technology completely supports it,” she added. But it’s not going to be a “one-step process.”

Multiple partners: Home Depot’s EVP and CIO Angie Brown said the home improvement retailer is working with a variety of tech partners, from Google to OpenAI to Microsoft, to see what hits over time, at a panel discussion on Wednesday.

“We’re testing to see what the consumers are going to latch onto,” Brown said. “There’s also an element where companies are testing the things that are going to help drive their revenue models, and so we’re in it together.”

It’s a dynamic and interesting time for online shopping, Reddit Co-Founder and CEO Steve Huffman said, during his keynote. “Those of you who’ve been on Reddit—you know this is true—there’s kind of like this anti-commercial vibe to it that comes from the authenticity,” Huffman said, “But what’s funny is that 40% of the conversations on Reddit platform-wide are commercial in nature because it turns out that the question behind every question is, ‘What should I buy?’” (Reddit this week rolled out new updates to entice merchants to start selling on its platform.)

So questions about AI were everywhere, and the AI takeover was visible across the Shoptalk Spring showfloor. “Every booth has AI integrated, even companies that do returns or supply chain. Everything is AI-oriented,” Wingo pointed out.

Justin Honaman, global head of worldwide retail, restaurants, and consumer goods at Amazon, said that while NRF was just two and a half months ago, many of its customers have a clearer understanding of what agentic commerce actually is now.

“When you start getting questions from customers, it’s powerful,” he said.