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“True enough, this compass does not point north,” Jack Sparrow tells Elizabeth Swann in Pirates of the Caribbean. “But it points to the thing you want most in this world.”
For most sailors, a compass that ignored north would be worthless. For Sparrow, it was priceless, because it cut through the noise and revealed only what mattered: where he needed to go. That was his edge.
Retail Tech leaders don’t have that edge. Dashboards are full of metrics, but none of them offer direction. Each quarter brings a new obsession: footfall, digital adoption, customer stickiness, AI pilots, and still the path ahead feels unclear.
This is the paradox of modern Retail: Tech leaders have more data than ever, yet less clarity. Customers don’t shop the way they used to. A generation that was expected to “go online” now stumbles onto products through social media and reels. Store associates are asking for better tools and more autonomy. Supply Chains are under constant pressure to adapt in real time.
In times like these, a compass that points north isn’t much help. What leaders need is Sparrow’s version, one that cuts through the noise and shows what really matters. Not the hundred things fighting for attention, but the few that truly move the needle when everything else is in flux.
Those signals exist. In retail, they take the shape of 5 directions the compass points to — the forces that will define the decade ahead.
AI will be one of the biggest forces shaping retail in the next decade. But its promise isn’t in piling up models or chasing efficiency. It’s in making life easier, for customers and for the people who serve them.
In practice, that means sharper demand forecasts that reduce empty shelves, recommendation engines that actually reflect a shopper’s taste, and copilots that handle routine reporting so store teams can focus on customers. They may seem like small changes, but they’re the ones that make shopping smoother for customers and work easier for employees.
A Fortune 500 Apparel company integrated AI into its planning and inventory decisions. The system processes millions of data points: product trends, local demand, sizing patterns, even social sentiment, and feeds them back to teams across the business. This has enabled:
The result: customers find what they want more often, employees feel part of the process, and the company grows while keeping people at the center.
That’s what AI can do in its early stages. Ten years from now, its role will be much larger.
Retail Tech innovation doesn’t come neatly packaged. It’s often messy, experimental, and driven by young companies working on fresh ideas. Start-ups bring speed, ingenuity, and niche tech in areas like AI, Logistics, Fintech, and Customer Experience. Established retailers bring scale, market reach, and operational rigor. When the relationship is symbiotic, where integration, compliance, and co-innovation are treated as seriously as product–market fit, the results can be game-changing.
A Fortune 50 Retail Enterprise. The company built a program to work directly with early-stage startups, treating them as partners rather than vendors. Instead of running short pilots that stall after proof-of-concept, the program helps startups adapt to enterprise needs from the start: compliance, procurement, security, and integration. This has enabled:
Today, start-ups help solve specific problems. In future, they could be embedded across the value chain, co-designing store experiences, building resilient Supply Chains, and shaping how Data and AI are used responsibly in Retail.
According to a report, Gen Z already wields over USD 360 Bn in disposable income and will account for nearly 17% of all spending by 2030. Unlike Millennials, who rallied behind brands, causes, and experiences, Gen Z is more pragmatic and selective. They save more (roughly a third of their income), research deeply before buying, and are quick to compare prices, delay purchases, or shop secondhand.
Quality ranks above price for them, but that doesn’t mean they’ll pay a premium blindly. They value sustainability and transparency, but only if it feels authentic and fairly priced. Their influence is outsized: not only do they spend, they shape what Millennials, Gen Xers, and even their parents buy.
This mentality makes traditional “push” marketing less effective. Gen Z doesn’t sit through campaigns; they discover products in reels, memes, and micro-communities. Trust is earned through authenticity, not repetition. For them, shopping is as much about participation and identity as it is about purchase.
A Global fashion brand headquartered in Spain reimagined its approach to Gen Z. Instead of simply sending PR kits or paying influencers for posts, the company partnered with digital creators and micro-influencers in a deeper way. Creators were invited into the product design process, involved in campaign ideation, and even featured in official launches with their own user-generated looks. This approach enabled:
Today, Gen Z influences trends and drives early adoption. In the coming decade, they will be the core consumer base for most categories. Their habits, pragmatic, digital-first, and community-driven, will set the standard for how retail operates. What feels like adapting to a niche today will, in ten years, define the mainstream.
A global beverage giant recently experimented with an AI-generated Christmas ad, designed to pay homage to one of its classic campaigns. Instead of nostalgia, the ad sparked backlash. Viewers called it “soulless” and “devoid of feeling,” criticizing its lack of warmth and genuine storytelling. For a brand built on emotional connection, the lesson was clear: remove the human touch, and even the most advanced AI can ring hollow.
This isn’t just about advertising. It highlights a deeper truth about Retail Tech: AI can automate, analyze, and scale, but it can’t replicate empathy, judgment, or the spark of creativity that builds trust. When brands lean on “machine-alone” strategies, they risk alienating the very customers they’re trying to win.
A Fortune 100 Retail Enterprise rolled out AI copilots to support planners and analysts. Instead of spending hours reconciling data or compiling reports, teams now use AI to generate forecasts and insights automatically. This has enabled:
The result: employees feel supported rather than replaced, while customers benefit from better availability and service.
AI will keep getting smarter, and the industry will keep promising that automation can do it all. But Retail doesn’t run only on algorithms, it runs on emotion. Over the next decade, customer demographics will shift, spending patterns will evolve, and the platforms of influence will change. What won’t change is the need for a human in the loop. Empathy, creativity, and trust are what anchor retail, and AI’s role is to support them, never to replace them.
COVID, geopolitical shocks, and trade disruptions have exposed just how fragile most retail supply chains really are. Stores ran out of essentials, containers piled up at ports, and customers faced long delays for even basic products. Retail Tech leaders scrambled to recover – but by then, trust had already taken a hit.
Many celebrated “bouncing back,” but resilience can’t just mean reacting after a crisis. In today’s world of constant uncertainty, it has to mean building systems that anticipate shocks and adapt before they reach the customer. That’s where AI and scenario planning are becoming critical. Instead of relying on historical data, leading retailers are running thousands of “what if” models to test for supply chain stress, re-route inventory, and protect availability when the unexpected happens.
A global Consumer Goods company faced major disruptions in one of its key markets, where local operations were paralyzed during a period of unrest. But because the company had digitized its Supply Chain and embedded scenario planning into its systems, it was able to reroute production, balance inventory, and keep products available. This enabled:
The result: customers still saw stocked shelves in an environment where most competitors were struggling.
Over the next decade, Supply Chains will be tested by climate volatility, geopolitical shifts, and rising customer demands for reliability. Retailers that design for resilience, using AI to run constant scenario planning, digitizing inventory flows, and building flexible sourcing networks, will keep shelves stocked and customers loyal.
Jack Sparrow’s compass was unlike any other. To most, it looked broken, it didn’t point north, it didn’t follow rules, and it certainly didn’t inspire confidence. But Jack believed in it. And because he did, it led him to places others thought unreachable, to Isla de Muerta, to treasures, and to survival when others were lost.
The signals we’ve laid out are much the same. They may not look familiar, and there will be resistance to following them. But the point of a compass was never to find north. It’s to find what matters most, and for retail tech leaders, that’s the path to building relevance, resilience, and trust in the decade ahead.
THANK YOU
FOR YOUR RESPONSE
