Retail Connect 2026

AI is a tool, not a strategy

AI gives smaller brands a competitive edge against the market leaders. But its use cases need to be well defined before being deployed.

Start small, prove value, scale with purpose.

Use AI to augment, not replace

Your employees are your greatest asset, especially in a fast-paced retail environment.

AI can't replace them. But it can help deliver a faster, more customised experience for your customers.

You can't skip the foundation

CeX's story made it clear - AI & automation only work when the underlying network is primed.

Getting the infrastructure right is what unlocks everything else.

KEYNOTE: THE REBEL RETAILER

Holly Tucker, MBE

Holly shared the lessons learned from two decades of putting customers at the centre of everything. She also talked about what it's like building a new business in the age of AI, with her latest venture, Holly & Co.

The highlights:

AI is a tool, not a strategy. Holly & Co uses technology as the scaffolding upon which the brand, and brands of other small businesses, will thrive.
'Emotional commerce' is the new e-commerce. Customers will vote with their money for the brands that they believe in.
The brands that will win will be more human. The trick is understanding how to use AI to scale the unique.

Retail-connect-32

Emotional Commerce

Where will AI have the biggest impact in retail over the next three years?

The biggest shift will be agents:

• Moving from single task automation to running workflows

• Becoming easier to implement and more dynamic over time

• Building systems that adapt as the business changes, rather than fixed use cases

What role will AI play in an ever changing retail customer landscape?

It will adapt to how customers want to interact.

Some customers want personal, in-store experiences, others want speed and instant answers...

AI will reduce friction, personalise the experience and improve customer satisfaction.

KEEPING THE HUMAN IN THE LOOP

Kamal Daniels, Head of Business Systems at Kurt Geiger

Ask ten people what AI is and you'll get ten different answers - and that gap, Kamal argued, is exactly why education has to come before deployment. Not just technical education, but a shared understanding of what AI actually does, where it can get things wrong, and what data you're feeding into it.

Her bigger point was about balance. The self-checkout is a useful analogy: people use them, they're fast, they work well... until they don't. The moment technology wobbles you want a person. That instinct doesn't go away just because AI is more sophisticated.

Don't lead with the technology, lead with the problem

No customer has ever walked into a Kurt Geiger store asking for a specific AI feature. They ask where their order is. They want to feel like the brand knows them. It's on retailers to interpret that - and decide whether AI is actually the right tool to answer it.

Transform every interaction with conversational intelligence

With every conversation comes value. With conversational intelligence, your business can finally unlock it!

By analysing 100% of your customer interactions across voice, chat and email, your teams gain a clear view of what’s happening and why. Contact centres reduce repeat contacts, service desks resolve issues faster, and sales teams uncover missed opportunities.

Ultimately, conversational intelligence is productivity without compromise, and next-level insights with no complexity. Even better, it’s all powered by technology that fits around the tools your teams already use.

Essential tools that elevate every customer conversation. When every conversation becomes measurable and searchable, performance lifts across the board. Conversational intelligence software helps:

Reduce customer churn by up to 30%
Increases first contact resolution by more than 50%
Time spent on QA and admin can fall by 77%

On top of that, through sentiment-led coaching and more consistent service, you’ll also see improvements to CSATs!

Conversational intelligence tools remove manual work and replace guesswork with dependable insight. As accuracy improves and compliance occurs naturally in the background, these enhancements can appear from day one.

CX-email-5-CI-dashboard-high-res

Your AI journey with Focus Group

AI-led change doesn’t need to happen all at once. You don’t have to rewire your entire operation or commit to full automation on day one. You can move at a pace that feels right - each step delivering meaningful value long before you reach the next.

We meet you where you are today. We focus first on making work easier, conversations clearer, and decisions more informed. Then, when you’re ready, we help you grow into deeper levels of automation with confidence.

Here’s how the journey unfolds...

Discovery & Mapping

Our adoption model is built to support businesses at every stage of their CX AI adoption. Whether you’re at the start of your AI journey or ready to fast-track automation at scale, we take a structured approach that matches your pace and priorities.

Tailored roadmap

This roadmap becomes your guide - from discovery to deployment - and shows how each part of the system supports your wider goals. Avoid the worries many businesses face when considering AI through testing, learning, and refining through short proof-of-concept phases that are proven to increase long-term success.

Setup

Our team configures your environment, ensures your systems integrate through open APIs, and creates a seamless workflow so your AI tools feel like a natural extension of your existing setup. We’ll introduce your teams to the platform at a pace that suits them. All our onboarding is supported by hands-on guidance from our expert UK-based team.

Ongoing support

From real-time dashboards to proactive QA support, we help you track performance and create continuous improvement cycles that keep your CX snappy and sharp. We also run regular optimisation sessions where we refine automation rules, train AI models with new data, and ensure your customer journey keeps up with their behaviours.