For retailers, this shift creates new opportunities across physical and digital environments. AI shopping assistants, digital floor agents, knowledge assistants, and research agents can help deliver more personalized product discovery, real-time inventory and store guidance, employee enablement, and faster competitive intelligence. Yet successful deployment also requires retailers to address governance, integration, privacy, talent, and business-value challenges.
In our latest Market Brief, The Autonomous Store: How Agentic AI is Redefining the Retail Experience, completed in partnership with Lenovo, Futurum Research explores how agentic AI is reshaping retail operations and why the autonomous store is becoming a practical near-term opportunity rather than a distant vision.
In this brief, you will learn:
- How agentic AI is moving retail beyond chatbots toward autonomous, action-oriented agents
- Why 2026 represents an inflection point for agentic AI in retail
- The four core agent types shaping the intelligent retail environment
- How turnkey platforms such as Lenovo’s Super Agent for Retail are accelerating adoption
- Key challenges and recommendations for scaling agentic AI responsibly
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Author Information
Dion Hinchcliffe is a distinguished thought leader, IT expert, and enterprise architect, celebrated for his strategic advisory with Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies. With over 25 years of experience, Dion works with the leadership teams of top enterprises, as well as leading tech companies, in bridging the gap between business and technology, focusing on enterprise AI, IT management, cloud computing, and digital business. He is a sought-after keynote speaker, industry analyst, and author, known for his insightful and in-depth contributions to digital strategy, IT topics, and digital transformation. Dion’s influence is particularly notable in the CIO community, where he engages actively with CIO roundtables and has been ranked numerous times as one of the top global influencers of Chief Information Officers. He also serves as an executive fellow at the SDA Bocconi Center for Digital Strategies.
