Hyper-personalisation, AI advancements and swift supply chains: Key talking points from NRF 2025

Featuring more than 1,000 exhibitors, 40,000 attendees from across the globe and over 100 industry leaders analysing the latest topics and trends in customer experience and retention, NRF’s Big Show sets the agenda for the year ahead in retail. Check out Flooid’s top talking points from the 2025 event.

AI evolutions and hyper-personalisation

Throughout NRF 2025, the ongoing evolution of AI was a constant topic of discussion among speakers and exhibitors. Several sessions examined the ways that AI can be leveraged to enhance omnichannel experiences and further engage consumers, as well as exploring the idea of “unified commerce” with autonomous AI agents and discussing how GenAI can fill the gaps produced by ongoing labour shortages.

In terms of ongoing, real-world applications, Trang To, vice president of omni at Tapestry, explored how the fashion retailer is using AI-enabled computer vision software to not only make self-checkout experiences seamless but also to gather live data on consumer habits that could prove to be revolutionary for physical stores.

“It has the power to transform how we think about store design, merchandising, store associate training and even labour productivity,” she explained, adding that data analysis can be a predictive tool as much as a record of completed transactions.

“I think a lot of what hyper-personalisation looks like is actually initiating the ‘unsaid’ things the consumer is saying,” she said.

To understand more about incorporating AI innovation into everyday store operations via Flooid’s Composable architecture and open APIs, read our Composable Commerce whitepaper and our Flooid thinks: People and process, as well as technology blog.

Digital twins

As consumers continue to prioritise omnichannel experiences that can incorporate digital functionality into bricks and mortar locations, retailers are increasingly looking for solutions that can keep physical stores agile and capable of flexing to changing needs. NVIDIA showcased its 3D digital twin software, which allows retailers such as L’Oreal to produce virtual, customisable maps of their stores that can become the blank canvas for testing new advertising campaigns. Alternatively, retailers like Lowe have been using digital twins to input live operational and inventory data. “As a result, they’ve been able to simulate different layouts to really optimise how customers are shopping in stores, and how to change layouts to ultimately improve revenue,” Azita Martin, VP and General Manager of Retail & CPG for NVIDIA, said.

Since making changes in layouts can be time-intensive and disruptive, the ability to simulate different layouts and operations before a change is made at the store or on DC level can eliminate disruption and associated costs, allowing retailers to improve throughput and fulfil orders faster. At Flooid, we help retailers test out new experiences by leveraging our cloud architecture, infrastructure as code and automated testing capabilities.

Conversational assistants

When customers are browsing, whether online or in-store, the need for a personalised experience was emphasised by many of the speakers and exhibitors at NRF 2025. Through employing the language-based models of Generative AI, retailers such as Walmart have begun testing virtual shopping assistants that can help consumers with search and discovery using natural language terms, while Amazon’s conversational assistant has become a key component of its interface, enabling shoppers to make more informed decisions and for staff to hone descriptions to become more accurate.

“We’re up to half a billion customer questions that we just wouldn’t have been able to answer before in the search box,” Doug Herrington, CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores, said.

“It’s really opened up a whole new level of customer convenience.”

Harnessing this potential in-store, retailers could equally equip associates with their own conversational assistants and provide them with live data on inventory, location and more from the touch of a screen.

Take a look at how Flooid’s Empower platform already provides associates with live alerts and data insights to better serve customers across endpoints and optimise their engagement.

Reimagining supply chains

At the convention’s cutting-edge Innovators Showcase, several solutions tackled the increasingly important issue of supply chain management. Since customers value seamless returns, click and collect and sustainable practices, today’s supply chains must be smarter, more efficient and highly adaptable. Programs like Orderful displayed their capacity to enhance retailer and trading partner connections by modernising EDI workflows, thereby reducing delays and enabling more efficient supply chain operations. Machine learning program G2RL, meanwhile, aims to transform returns management and help retailers lower costs, as well as minimise waste and streamline recovery processes for returned items.

Finally, AI-powered inventory optimisation software Sizeo analyses live data to tackle stock inaccuracies and misalignments, making sure supply coheres with size and location-specific demand. By ensuring the right products are delivered to the right places at the right time, Sizeo could potentially reduce waste, boost margins and improve inventory accuracy.

Flooid allows retailers to extend and unify their data to be more accurate in managing their supply needs and using Insights to be able to better and more efficiently operate at optimal stock and inventory levels.

To learn more about Flooid’s perspective on the exciting world of hybrid retail evolution, read our Five ways Flooid drives success in omnichannel retail blog.

Enhanced loss prevention

As criminals continue to target self-service kiosks and checkouts, attempting to game automated systems to steal products, retailers are responding with increasingly sophisticated methods for tracking product journeys throughout the premises and detecting anomalous behaviour. Several exhibitors at NRF 2025 displayed advanced surveillance technology that could be used to monitor real-time store activity, including computer vision cameras can detect and alert staff to unusual patterns of behaviour such as multiple scans of the same barcode or people loitering by the checkout, as well as performing automated quality checks on returned items to investigate for defects or mismatched items, thereby reducing fraud.

Through combining AI, computer vision and RFID tags, retailers can ultimately produce a checkout and return experience that is seamless, swift and secure.

“If you’re at home and you realise you need to change a size, you can start a digital return on the website or on an app, get a QR code, walk with that item into the store with that QR code, scan it, and just drop the item off,” Matthew Guiste, global retail technology strategist at Zebra Technologies, said.

“You don’t have to talk to anybody. Maybe you bought it online or bought it in the store, but it bridges the digital part of the return and the in-store part seamlessly.”

Flooid has a distinguished track record of helping the world’s largest retailers address loss prevention issues. Read our white papers to explore how the real-time data insights of the Empower app and our innovations within the SCO UI are just some of the new developments helping retailers combat shrink.

Making lasting connections

Drawing attendees from around the globe, NRF 2025 was a meaningful chance for industry leaders, colleagues and friends to meet and explore the exciting developments their industry has to offer. Flooid was proud to present our innovative solutions for 2025 and to make connections with so many friendly faces.

If you’re a retailer looking to invest in a seamless employee and customer experience, speak to Flooid. Our single unified commerce platform, extensive partner integrations and advanced insight tools make us a trusted partner for modernising and optimising the way retailers sell.