This Week in Retail: March inflation data and HumanX AI conference

Easter was yesterday, and if NRF estimates were on point, there were a record $24.9 billion in retail sales fueled by candy, gifts, decorations, and clothing. Passover, which started last Wednesday, concludes this Thursday, and after that, the big spring holidays will be behind us, ushering in that unpredictable sales period between major holidays and big summer deal days and back-to-school season that give retailers and consumers a sense of direction.

Here’s what else is going on in retail this week:

In remodels: Walmart this month is starting remodeling projects at several Walmart Neighborhood Markets, mainly across the US South, with the goal of delivering “quicker results and less consumer disruption.” The retailer says it is experimenting with a quicker turnaround than the typical month remodeling process, shutting down their main sales floors for just four weeks while keeping pharmacies and fuel stations open. “This is an opportunity to test, learn, and refine our remodel process to identify best practices for the future,” the company wrote in a blog post.

In data releases: The consumer price index for March is coming out this Friday, with expectations of a sizable jump in inflation due to rising energy costs. The last report for February showed prices rising 0.3% month over month (up from 0.2% in January) and 2.4% year over year, with shelter costs being the biggest contributor to the increase and food and food at home prices also pushing up the benchmark. Meanwhile, at an event hosted at Harvard University, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the central bank is carefully monitoring inflation expectations, and hinted that the plan is to hold interest rates steady in the short-term.

In conferences: The biggest names in AI are gathering in San Francisco this week for the HumanX conference. The event is the “brainchild” of entrepreneurs Stefan Weitz and Jonathan Weiner and is billed as a place to discuss future possibilities, while “anchoring the conference in the practical and real-world applications” for AI. The speaker list is a who’s who of high-profile tech executives, from OpenAI and Anthropic to Google and Perplexity, but there is at least one interesting inclusion from the world of retail: Daniel Danker, executive VP of AI acceleration, product and design at Walmart, who prior to joining the retail giant worked as chief product officer at Instacart. Danker will be discussing how Walmart is scaling its AI applications and putting them at the core of global operations.