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At Shoptalk Fall, I asked Brendan Witcher a question. A long one. I started with how everyone overgeneralizes about retail. Then I wandered into department stores, where apparel and housewares might as well be different businesses. Then grocery, where the wine section and the shelf-stable milk aisle don’t engage a shopper the same way. Then I took a swing at tech vendors who tell every retailer to “do this for your customers” without asking which customers.
Why Your AI ROI Is a Leadership Gap Wrapped in a Technology Costume.
I’ll admit something: my grocery cart has a lot more store brands in it than it used to. More than ever. And it’s fine. When I confessed this on mic in Nashville, Brandon Rael didn’t miss a beat: “Tastes just as good.”
Here’s the part that got me thinking. Private label just hit a record 23.8% unit share, and store brands barely advertise. S
o how are shoppers finding them?
My guess is a lot of people are typing something like “what’s a cheaper alternative to my favorite national brand that still tastes good?” into an AI tool and following whatever comes back.
If that’s right, national brands are losing sales in conversations they can’t see.
That’s the invisible lost sale, and it’s where I started a live Data Blades podcast conversation at Shoptalk Fall with Brandon Rael and Rupa Amin from Perficient. (Casey still hasn’t forgiven me for going without her.) Perficient sponsored this episode, and we built the conversation around their new 2026 State of the Industry report for Retail and Consumer.
SPONSOR: Perficient
State of the Industry: Retail & Consumer Report
Can you guess what percentage of retail leaders can’t define ROI from AI projects?
Drawing on insights from 50 retail and consumer decision-makers and Perficient’s industry practitioners, this State of the Industry report answers that question and more. Explore the trends, tensions, and signals shaping the future of the industry and learn how organizations are approaching AI, balancing innovation with execution, and preparing for emerging buying behaviors such as agentic commerce.
See where your organization’s priorities and challenges stand with peers across the industry. Read the report today to learn more!
Agentic commerce is small and growing fast.
Brandon grounded things right away. About 85% of retail still happens in stores. E-commerce is 10 to 15%, social commerce 1 to 2%. So AI shopping agents are touching a slice of a slice right now.
Then there’s Adobe’s number: AI-referred traffic to retail sites is up 393%. Yes, small numbers make big percentages. I said as much on air. It’s still the kind of growth curve you don’t want to discover late.
Brandon’s prep list is unglamorous:
tech specs,
reviews,
product attributes,
and more data rather than less.
As he put it, an agent shops without emotion and works from the data you give it. If your product data has holes, the agent moves on and you never hear about it.
64% can’t prove it’s working.
This was the number I came for. Perficient surveyed 50 director-level and above retail and consumer leaders, and 64% don’t have reliable data on their own AI ROI.
Rupa said leaders keep telling her team, “We tried to do something with AI. We’re not sure if it helped.”
I laughed when she said it, then winced, because two retailers on a panel I moderated the week before had told me nearly the same thing. The process they tried to automate with AI turned out to be a process nobody actually followed.
Rupa’s diagnosis was the best line of the conversation: a leadership gap wrapped in a technology costume.
Leaders haven’t decided which part of the business AI should fix, or how they’ll measure it.
Perficient even has a customer project whose name sums up the whole problem. I’m not explaining it here. Go to 13:16 in the episode and find out who Bob is.
Almost half are funding AI in the wrong order.
Brandon’s fix starts with people, then priorities, then technology. Get leaders in a room, agree on the three to five areas that matter most, tie each one to an ROI case, and only then put AI into those processes.
And do the data work first. “If the foundation of the house isn’t set, the house is gonna fall down the hill,” he said.
He’s worked with retailers still running AS400s on 30 to 40 years of tech debt.
Rupa added the line I’d hand every conference attendee on the way out: it’s easy to get fired up at these events and go home planning to change the world. Start with a hard look at what you already have. Every platform you own is adding AI. Your job is to get your data ready for it.
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Where I landed.
The retailers who win with agentic commerce will be the ones who can show their work. That comes down to three unglamorous things.
One owner per AI project. Rupa’s rule: when something fails and a phone call has to be made, that call goes to the owner, not the committee.
A baseline you take this quarter. Rupa’s Monday-morning advice: start now. Pick a KPI, pick a process, add AI, and take a baseline snapshot. A year from now, that snapshot is the difference between an answer for the board and an activity report.
Product data an agent can read. The AI shopping for your customer won’t fill in the blanks for you.
None of this gets a standing ovation at a conference keynote. The board will ask about all three anyway.
Watch, listen, subscribe, and read.
🎙️The Retail Razor: Data Blades, Season 2 Episode 17: “64% of Retail Leaders Can't Prove Their AI ROI.”
Listen wherever you get podcasts or watch on our YouTube channel or Spotify.
You can find Perficient’s 2026 State of the Industry report here.
Your turn.
If you sell B2B, jump to 09:20, where Rupa explains what reps need to say now that buyers arrive having already asked AI.
This is the second of four episodes we recorded live and in-person at Shoptalk Fall in Nashville. If this was useful, subscribe so the next one lands in your inbox.
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Stay sharp. Be data-driven. Harness AI.
Sincerely,
Ricardo Belmar
The Retail Razor: Data Blades
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Data Blades is part of the Retail Razor Podcast Network, alongside The Retail Razor Show, Retail Transformers, and Blade to Greatness. Find us at RetailRazor on LinkedIn, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram. For a full transcript of this episode, visit our retailrazor.com website!