Marketing

Every day, thousands of people are searching and reading about your company. About your team's expertise. Learning from guides and marketing collateral. These actions have been building trust in your brand. All without ever clicking through to your website. A manager in need of help with chatbot implementation might take their questions to an artificial…

Retail has always been a human-centered business. Every sale, return, upsell and resolution depends on an employee’s ability to read emotion, respond appropriately, and guide a customer through an experience that feels both personal and efficient. As customer expectations rise, competitive advantage in retail is no longer defined by operational efficiency alone, but by how…

Artificial intelligence in retail, especially agentic AI, first seemed to promise a leap forward in customer experience. In 2026, though, AI is likely to have the most influence on customer behavior. We’re already seeing behavior shift in ways that are pushing retailers to rethink their discovery, partnership, and channel strategies. In this article, we’ll look…

Today’s marketers are integrating generative artificial intelligence solutions across workflows, automating key components of campaign creation and orchestration. And they're seeing results in record time. However, the next era of AI-enabled marketing strategies will not be centered on automation. Tomorrow’s marketing leaders will be focused on building agentic AI solutions that can handle complex workflows…

Something strange is happening in e-commerce. Consumer spending is up. Online time is up. Yet traffic to major retail websites is declining. The answer is actually quite simple: shoppers are changing how they research and where they buy. Their starting point, which used to be about discovery, is now where they're making decisions. Many may…

Ace Hardware, the world's largest hardware cooperative, has launched Hey ARMA, an artificial intelligence-powered assistant designed to support its nationwide in-store associates with real-time information and guidance. Operated through a handheld device, Hey ARMA provides associates with quick access to product knowledge, project advice, and recommendations, helping them to focus on solving customer problems and…

In the early days of retail media, retailers were told all they needed was to get an on-site ad server and the advertisers would come. “Build it and they will come.” However, they didn’t come in the waves promised. Now retailers are being told to plug in demand channels and the revenue will flow —…

2026 is delivering both challenges and opportunities for retailers and the retail sector. There is no avoiding the unknowns of supply chain pressures and inconsistent consumer purchasing confidence. However, there are opportunities for retailers that get the in-store and omnichannel experience equation right to spur sales, customer loyalty, and satisfaction. Core pieces of this puzzle…

In the U.S., e-commerce sales are projected to reach $1.8 trillion by 2030, according to Forrester. Even then, online will account for just 29 percent of total retail sales, with the remaining 71 percent, around $4.4 trillion, still happening in physical stores. Yet so many loyalty programs are still built around earning points online. Our…

If it feels like customers are harder to win over right now, it’s because they are. Across categories and price points, we are all scrutinizing purchases more carefully, weighing alternatives more thoroughly, and demanding clearer value before we buy. Several forces are converging to create this moment of heightened selectivity. Consumers are more informed than…