NRF 2025 highlights AI, experiential retail

Payments industry journalist Dale Laszig attended the National Retail Federation's annual conference Jan. 12 to 14, 2025, at New York City's Jacob J. Javits Convention Center, an event that attracted 40,000 attendees, 1,000 exhibitors and 5,000 brands. Following is her report:

AI and experiential retail dominated exhibits and discussions at NRF 2025, including the following examples:

• Personalization: Claude Buitendach, senior solution director at Syntax, a technology integration company, said AI can help retailers personalize the customer journey without knowing a customer.

• Single-click guest checkout: Bill Conway, head of Fastlane development at PayPal, said AI can accelerate and enhance guest checkouts, where most friction and fraud occur in ecommerce. "We send a one-time password to the device associated with the user, reducing friction, reducing fraud, and giving guests a member experience," he said.

• Balance security and KYC: Holly Worst, vice president of retail and unified commerce at Adyen, a financial technology platform, said AI can help manage conversion, fraud and cost, by giving retailers the tools to pull each lever more intelligently without causing one to go up and the other to go down.

• Visual search: Rachel Hardy, director, consumer product marketing for Pinterest, a visual search and discover platform, mentioned that traditional search engines are losing share to visual discovery platforms. Gen Z consumers find joy in curating images from multiple platforms, which advancements in AI are making possible, she noted, adding that most of all, "consumers want choice in where they shop, and personalization is easier online."

• Content creation: Laura Oxler, sales leader, brand and creative, soona, a virtual content studio, said most people buy with their eyeballs. "We take photos of products and enhance them with AI tools," she said. "You don't have to pay models – you can use tech to solve content creation problems."

• Speed of service: Mark Wheeler, chief marketing officer, Storyblok, a content management suite, said retailers can use AI tools to create dynamic pricing and instant personalized offers in stores and online.

Experiential retail

Brad Giles, senior vice president of marketing and sales enablement at Ingenico, a payments acceptance and services firm, said payments touch all consumers, from a six-year-old who gets a gift card to a 90-year-old retiree renewing an AARP membership.

"My six-year-old and fifteen-year-old are growing up in a digital world and will never see cash in their lifetimes," Giles said, noting his kids would rather have a retinal scan than insert a card in a POS device.

"Within a generation everything we know about payments will be gone," Giles added. "For the next ten to fifteen years, traditional terminals will morph into experiential retail."

Georgia Leybourne, chief marketing officer at Linnworks, a connected commerce operations platform, said, "Today's customer shops on websites, stores, Amazon, eBay and brand marketplaces," noting that TikTok, Shein, and Temu are working their way into the U.S. market and modern retail must be accessible to customers on multiple channels.

In this environment, Leybourne added, a retailer that only sells on a website and Amazon is missing out on a huge customer base. Retailers must leverage a variety of media, she said, including short-term video, to reach customers who like to watch, read, or meet in person.

Economic optimism

NRF Chief Economist Jack Kleinhenz, Ph.D., led a discussion with Sarah Wolfe, senior economist and strategist, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management; and Gregory Daco, chief economist, EY Parthenon, who had mostly positive forward-looking statements.

"Despite a weakness in the first quarter, the economy has been growing at a pretty sturdy pace, with a healthy labor market and low unemployment," Kleinhenz said. "Inflation has improved, and we saw the Federal Reserve reduce interest rates three times over the past year, a total of 100 basis points."

Despite having five fewer days in the 2024 season, panelists noted that holiday spend grew by 4 percent, marking a return to pre-pandemic trends and reflecting a positive global GDP.

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