BONUS S6E8 A Zebra ZONE 2026 recap on pragmatic AI, on-device AI, super apps, and giving store associates their day back Ricardo Belmar just got back from Zebra Technologies’ ZONE 2026 conference in Nashville, where pragmatic AI was the main theme. In this special bonus episode of The Retail Razor Show, he and Casey Golden unpack what it all means for retail’s frontline workers. This is a story about pragmatic AI, the kind that gives store associates and warehouse teams their day back instead of promising the moon. The headline from ZONE 2026? Zebra is no longer telling a devices story. It’s telling a frontline platform story, anchored by on-device AI that runs with no cloud, no tokens, and no waiting. Ricardo brought back two exclusive interviews, with Zebra CTO Tom Bianculli and Mobile Computing chief James Poulton, plus a notebook full of stats, demos, and hallway conversations that deliver the full pragmatic AI story. We get into why frontline workers are drowning in 70 to 80 apps when they only use about a dozen, the super app built to fix it, real-time translation running live on a device, and why “tokenless” pragmatic AI became the word of the week. If you want to understand on-device AI and what it delivers for frontline workers, this episode is your shortcut. In This Episode, You'll Learn • Zebra’s three big software announcements: Nucleus, Workcloud IO, and Workcloud BI • The 80-apps problem and the super app designed to collapse it down to one experience • Why on-device AI, tokenless and at the edge, beats cloud round trips for frontline use cases • Real-time translation in any language, live on the device • Micro-learning, the “TikTok of learning,” and tackling 70 to 80% frontline turnover • Picture proof of delivery: how a second and a half scales into tens of millions of dollars • The octopus organization, and why intelligence belongs at the edge of the org • James Poulton on why large language models are overhyped for the enterprise Why it matters We’ve spent years on this show arguing that your associate experience is your customer experience. ZONE 2026 felt like the technology industry finally catching up to that idea, treating frontline workers as the most under-invested asset in retail and giving them on-device AI that augments rather than replaces. Pragmatic AI wins on the accumulation of small moments, and that is the thread we pull all episode long. Subscribe & Follow If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube Featured guests Tom Bianculli, Chief Technology Officer, Zebra Technologies https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-bianculli-9053892/ James Poulton, SVP & GM, Mobile Computing, Zebra Technologies https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamespoulton/ Chapters 00:00 Teaser 01:01 Show intro 02:12 What Zebra announced at ZONE 2026 04:00 The 80-apps problem and the super app 06:53 Real-time translation on the device 08:55 Tokenless, on-device AI explained 11:46 Best moment: the octopus organization 15:43 Interview: Tom Bianculli, CTO Zebra Technologies 35:50 Recap: pragmatic AI and returning time to workers 40:27 Interview: James Poulton, SVP & GM Mobile Computing 53:21 Big takeaways from ZONE 2026 59:32 Show Close Meet your hosts Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

BONUS S6E7 8 retail trends for 2026 including AI-assisted shoppers, why people are the new luxury, and the grey swans most retailers are ignoring Casey Golden and Ricardo Belmar spent two days at The Lead Summit in New York City with the operators, founders, and analysts actually running retail right now, and they walked out with a clear read on the retail trends 2026 will be built on. Instead of a session-by-session recap, this bonus episode pulls out the eight cross-cutting themes that showed up no matter whose stage they were on, from Anthropologie and Talbots to Hey Dude, Olaplex, Loop, and Coterie. The headline: every AI experiment built to replace people was a failure story, and every one built to extend people was a winner. From there the conversation runs through the rewired store, the rise of the AI-assisted shopper, why human connection is becoming the new luxury, and the grey swan events most retailers can see coming but refuse to plan for. If you want the retail trends 2026 leaders are quietly betting on, plus what to do about it Monday morning, this is the episode. In This Episode, You'll Learn • Why AI augmentation beats AI replacement, and the customer service "40% ticket deflection" stat that fell apart under real measurement • How the AI-assisted shopper is already changing product discovery, and why generative engine optimization (GEO) is getting 80% of the attention on 5% of the traffic • Why "people are the new luxury" may be the one theme still defining retail trends 2026 a year from now • What Talbots' 35-of-100 transactions stat says about store KPIs beyond sales per square foot • How community beat audience for breakout brands, and why your brand story now has to teach the LLMs who you are • The grey swans hiding in plain sight: GLP-1, the aging of America, and single-geography supply chain risk • The Monday-morning move to make before the AI-assisted shopper takes a bigger bite of your holiday traffic Notable Moments & Quotes • "AI won't sit down and have a cigarette with me." The line that summed up why people still matter. • "Listening is a capability, but hearing is a skill." • Rainbow Shops: a vendor's 40% ticket deflection collapsed because customers just hung up and called back for a human. • Talbots' Concierge clienteling went from reaching 300,000 of 750,000 eligible customers to all of them, while keeping the calls human. AI does the volume, people do the moments. • Loop Earplugs grew from $1M to $250M in five years, obsessing over one question: where did you first hear about us? • MoMA Design Store: "We're not Amazon, and we don't want to be." • Randa Apparel's grey swans: GLP-1 (roughly 8M users today, potentially 100M by 2030), more Americans over 65 than under 18 by 2028, and the warning that "a business built around a single geography isn't lean, it's exposed." Subscribe & Follow If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube Chapters 00:00 Teaser 01:01 Show Intro 03:18 The BIG Recap - Our 8 Themes form The Lead Summit 05:49 Theme 1 - The Augmentation Imperative 09:49 Theme 2 - People are the New Luxury 14:17 Theme 3 - The Rewired Store 18:40 Theme 4 - Get Ready for the AI-Assisted Shopper 24:19 Theme 5 - Community Over Audience 30:57 Theme 6 - Brand Discipline and the Power of Saying No 35:22 Theme 7 - Multiplatform & Multigenerational Reality 40:23 Theme 8 - Grey Swans: The Conversations Most People Aren't Having 45:39 Key Take Aways: What Should Listeners Do Monday Morning? 48:53 Show Close Meet your hosts Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E6 Campari America's Allison Varone on mindful drinking and the new rules of beverage brand building with Gen Z Everyone keeps repeating that Gen Z doesn't drink. The data tells a far more interesting story about mindful drinking and this episode unpacks it. In this episode of The Retail Razor Show, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with Allison Varone, Head of Marketing at Campari America, for a genuine masterclass in beverage brand building. With more than 20 years across the wine and spirits industry, Allison leads marketing for one of the most iconic brand portfolios in the world: Aperol, Campari, Wild Turkey, Courvoisier, Grand Marnier, Espolòn Tequila, and the newly US-launched Crodino, a non-alcoholic spritz beloved in Italy since 1965. This conversation goes beyond the headlines about the spirits industry to explore the cultural shifts, strategic bets, and marketing instincts behind some of the most recognizable drinks in the world, and what they mean for anyone building consumer brands in 2026. What We Cover • How Gen Z is redefining drinking culture, and why mindful drinking is a growth opportunity for the spirits industry rather than a threat • The "zebra striping" trend: how consumers now bounce between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages depending on the occasion • Crodino's US launch and the strategic timing behind Campari America's move into the non-alcoholic spirits space • Why occasion-led marketing has replaced category-first brand thinking across the beverage industry • What Aperol's Coachella activation and Negroni Week reveal about experiential marketing ROI • How Wild Turkey's "Don't Change a Damn Thing" campaign keeps a heritage brand culturally relevant on TikTok • The real playbook for challenger brands trying to break through a crowded beverage market • What premiumization actually means when consumers are cautious, and how Espolòn Tequila balances premium with accessible • Inside the Campari Academy and how bartender education becomes a competitive advantage • A bold look at the spirits industry in 2035: more inclusive, more occasion-led, and centered on human connection A Standout Idea from This Episode Allison's advice to brand strategists was refreshingly direct: focus less on categories and more on how consumers are actually evolving. Lead with the occasion, then figure out where your brand fits into that moment. That is brand strategy advice that travels far beyond the spirits industry. Whether you work in retail, brand marketing, CPG, or you are simply curious about how culture shapes consumer behavior, this episode delivers insight you can use immediately. This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub. Join 2,000 retail leaders at RetailClub AI Festival, September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. Dive deep into how AI is reshaping retail while soaking up the sun at a fully outdoor, beachside venue. Decision-makers from retailers and brands can attend with free tickets and up to $1,250 in travel reimbursement. Head to retailclub.com to learn more. https://retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast Subscribe & Follow If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube About our Guest Allison Varone, Head of Marketing, Campari America. https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-varone-4650901/ https://www.camparigroup.com/en Allison Varone is Head of Marketing at Campari America, a growing powerhouse group in the U.S. spirits market. A seasoned executive, leader and strategist, she has more than 20 years of experience driving growth, market share and profitability for both large and small brands. She joined Campari America in 2024 and previously served as Vice President of Channel and Customer Marketing, where she lead Campari America to some of its greatest partnerships and campaigns, including Negroni Week for Campari, SKYY Vodka for PRIDE, Courvoisier Bring Your Own Courvoisier campaign and Aperol as a sponsor of the U.S. Open and the official Spritz Partner at Coachella. Chapters 00:00 Opening Teaser 00:49 Show Intro 06:02 Welcome Allison Varone 07:23 Gen Z & Mindful Drinking Culture 09:09 Non-Alc Innovation & Product Strategy 12:46 Occasion-Led Marketing & Coachella 14:39 Shifts in Consumer Behavior 17:02 Spanning Generations Across the Portfolio 19:26 Measuring Activation Impact 21:27 Advice for Challenger Brands 24:33 Honoring Heritage Brands 26:22 Premiumization & Value 28:18 The Campari Academy & Elevated Experiences 30:53 The Spirits Industry in 2035 33:17 Advice for Brand Strategists 35:27 Wrap-Up 37:23 Show Close Meet your hosts Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E5 What Retailers Must Know About Prompt Injection, Rogue Bots & AI Agent Security Before It's Too Late Your AI shopping agent just drained your bank account. It's not a glitch — that's the objective it was given. Welcome to the new reality of agentic commerce, where autonomous AI agents shop, transact, and negotiate on behalf of consumers and brands — and where cybercriminals are already waiting to exploit every crack in the system. In this must-listen episode of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with Dr. Aaron Estes, VP of Product & Engineering at Binary Defense, to unpack the retail cybersecurity crisis that most retailers haven't even started preparing for. With half of all internet traffic already coming from bots and 1 in 8 AI-related breaches now involving a rogue agent, the agentic commerce era is creating attack surfaces we've never seen before. Dr. Estes brings 20+ years of hands-on cybersecurity expertise, including penetration testing at Lockheed Martin and advisory work with leading retailers. He breaks down exactly how AI agents differ from traditional e-commerce threats, why prompt injection attacks are the new frontier of retail cybersecurity, and what practical guardrails every retailer needs to put in place right now. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: • Why AI agents are fundamentally different from human users — and why they'll "very confidently spend all your money" to hit their objective • How prompt injection attacks trick AI agents into leaking sensitive data • Why every AI agent needs its own identity, login, and role-based access controls — just like an employee • The "bots watching bots" architecture that's becoming the new standard in agentic commerce security • How AI shopping bots are already exploiting loyalty programs, gift cards, and rewards systems • Why retailers must rethink retail cybersecurity assumptions as autonomous shoppers replace human ones • How to identify rogue chatbots and fraudulent AI agents impersonating legitimate brands • What "human-in-the-loop" oversight really means — and where it's non-negotiable in agentic commerce This Episode is Brought to You By RetailClub. Join 2,000 retail leaders at RetailClub AI Festival, September 22–24 in Huntington Beach. Dive deep into how AI is reshaping retail while soaking up the sun at a fully outdoor, beachside venue. Decision-makers from retailers and brands can attend with free tickets and up to $1,250 in travel reimbursement. Head to retailclub.com to learn more. https://retailclub.com/retail-razor-podcast Subscribe & Follow If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube About our Guest Dr. Aaron Estes. https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronestes777/ email: [email protected] Dr. Aaron Estes is the VP of Product & Engineering at Binary Defense, a 24/7 cybersecurity watchtower specializing in cyber threat intelligence, dark web monitoring, digital channel fraud, and breach response. He holds a doctorate in software engineering with a concentration in cybersecurity, teaches at UC Berkeley and Southern Methodist University, and previously spent ~15 years in penetration testing at Lockheed Martin across defense, energy, retail, and entertainment sectors. Chapters 00:00 Teaser 00:49 Show Intro 07:26 Welcome Dr Aaron Estes! 09:31 Why Security Matters 14:00 New Attack Surface 17:57 AI Identity and Access 22:09 Adoption Speed and Oversight 26:51 Bots Watching Bots 31:34 Orchestrators and Rival Bots 34:06 Bots Gaming Rewards 37:13 AI Shoppers Rise 38:29 Ads Inside Agents 44:08 Rogue Bots And Trust 48:09 Risk Versus Reward 50:48 Kill Switch Reality 52:55 Ecommerce Lessons Repeat 54:26 Closing Thanks And Contact 56:21 Show Close Meet your hosts Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E4 Exploring the rise of performance TV, off-site retail media, and what it means for retailers and brands. Retail media is evolving fast, and if you're still stuck in 2022, you're already behind. In this episode of The Retail Razor Show, hosts Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden sit down with retail media expert Andrew Lipsman to explore how Retail Media Networks(RMNs) are expanding into Connected TV (CTV) and off-site retail media to drive growth in 2026 and beyond. From Amazon and Walmart’s bold moves into performance TV to the rise of off-site retail media as a full-funnel strategy, this episode is packed with insights for retailers and brands navigating the next wave of retail media strategy. Andrew breaks down the challenges of measurement, the myth of ROAS, and why CMOs and agencies need to rethink their approach to retail media. What You’ll Learn in This Episode: Why connected TV is the next frontier for retail media networks How off-site retail media is growing 3x faster than on-site The real story behind ROAS and why it’s often misleading How Amazon and Walmart are dominating performance TV What smaller RMNs can do to compete through partnerships Why CMOs and agencies must evolve their retail media strategy How to build a full-funnel retail media approach that works Whether you're building a retail media network or buying ad space for your next brand campaign, this episode is packed with the sharp insights you need to stay ahead. Subscribe & Follow If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5‑star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube About our Guest Andrew Lipsman. https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-lipsman-10b2162/ Analyst, Consultant, and Founder - Media, Ads + Commerce. Andrew Lipsman is an independent analyst and principal consultant at Media, Ads + Commerce. His industry coverage specializes in retail media—which he is known for anointing as “digital advertising’s third big wave”—and other areas of the digital media, advertising, and commerce ecosystem. He has published more than a half dozen articles in the Journal of Advertising Research and is frequently quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Financial Times, and Advertising Age. Media, Ads + Commerce. https://mediaadsandcommerce.substack.com Media, Ads + Commerce is a consultancy providing strategy and insights for companies in retail media and the broader media, advertising, and commerce ecosystem. Chapters 00:00 Teaser Open 00:51 Show Intro 04:19 Welcome Back Andrew Lipsman! 06:12 How Retail Media Evolved 07:56 Closed Loop And ROAS Limits 10:57 Retail Media Connective Tissue 15:24 CTV Goes Performance 21:19 Partnership Paths To CTV 24:53 Trade Desk And Agency Gap 27:32 Offsite Media Growth Drivers 29:27 Onsite Relevance First 30:40 Connected TV Landscape 31:46 Inventory Quality and Fraud 33:02 Target and Nordstrom Playbook 35:34 Full Funnel Measurement 36:33 CMO Perception Gap 38:09 Brands and Merchant Alignment 41:49 CTV Attribution Reality 44:06 Rethinking ROAS Metrics 46:17 Last Touch Misleads 47:59 Inefficiency as Opportunity 50:15 Talent and Org Alignment 53:21 2026 Priorities and Mindset 57:13 Where to Follow Andrew 58:00 Show Close Meet your hosts Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Music Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E3 PayPal’s Mike Edmonds breaks down agentic commerce and how it redefines trust, loyalty, and the merchant of record future Agentic commerce is no longer theoretical. It’s already reshaping how shoppers discover, evaluate, and buy products. In this episode, we sit down with Mike Edmonds, VP of Agentic Commerce & Commercial Growth at PayPal, to break down what agentic commerce really means for retailers right now and how agentic AI is transforming the entire shopping lifecycle. We explore the three major use cases of agentic commerce, how AI shopping agents are changing product discovery, why payments and trust are now central to the agentic commerce experience, and how retailers can maintain control of customer relationships through merchant of record models. If you’ve been trying to understand how agentic commerce works, how agentic AI fits into the retail ecosystem, or what retailers must do in the next six months to stay competitive, this episode delivers the clarity and direction you need. What You’ll Learn • What agentic commerce actually is; and why it matters now • How agentic AI is reshaping product discovery, checkout, and loyalty • The three core use cases: CUA, agentic checkout, and autonomous agent to agent shopping • Why payments, identity, and trust are the foundation of agentic commerce • How merchant of record models protect data and customer relationships • The role of loyalty programs in an agent driven world • Catalog readiness and the challenge of integrating with multiple LLMs • How close we are to the universal cart • What retailers must do today to prepare for the agentic shift Why This Episode Matters Agentic commerce is moving faster than most retailers realize. As agentic AI becomes embedded in browsers, apps, and everyday workflows, retailers must rethink how they manage trust, identity, payments, and customer experience. This episode gives you the frameworks and real world examples to understand how agentic commerce will reshape retail in the months ahead. Subscribe & Follow If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a 5 star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Subscribe on YouTube so you never miss an episode and check out the other shows in the Retail Razor Podcast Network: Retail Transformers, Blade to Greatness, and Data Blades. Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube About our Guest Mike Edmonds. https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeledmonds/ VP Agentic Commerce, Commercial Growth at PayPal. https://www.paypal.com/us/business/ai Mike Edmonds is VP of Agentic Commerce, Commercial Growth for PayPal, responsible for global commercialization, go-to-market, and operational execution across PayPal’s portfolio of AI-powered and agentic commerce products. Mike brings deep expertise having joined PayPal from Microsoft where he led AI and ecommerce strategy for Microsoft’s worldwide retail and consumer goods industry team. Prior to Microsoft, Mike was an agency operator, entrepreneur, and product leader driving digital transformation across B2B, DTC, and marketplace business models spanning a range of verticals including retail, CPG, high tech, industrial manufacturing, automotive, and foodservice across the US, Europe, and China. Mike is also an adjunct professor at Northwestern University teaching Kellogg MBA, MS in Design Innovation, and MS in Product Design and Development students through the Segal Design Institute at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. Chapters 00:00 Teaser 01:00 Show Intro 04:04 Welcome Mike Edmonds 05:22 Mike’s PayPal Role 07:14 Defining Agentic Commerce 14:40 Real World Agentic Checkout 19:33 Trust Merchant Data Loyalty 26:16 Loyalty As Differentiator 27:21 Travel Points And Agentic Commerce 28:32 Trust KYA And Liability 34:46 Skills For Future Commerce Careers 41:54 2030 Multimodal Future And Wrap 48:40 Show Close Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E2 The Retail Growth Strategy Retailers Need for 2026 with Today’s Economic Realities, Tariffs, Fed Moves, and Consumer Shifts In this powerful episode of The Retail Razor Show, Dr. Rebecca Homkes, London Business School lecturer, Duke faculty member, high‑growth strategy advisor, and author of Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times, joins Ricardo and Casey to break down what retailers must understand about the economic outlook in 2026, shifting consumer behavior, and the strategic moves that separate winners from laggards. Rebecca explains why uncertainty is not a threat but a catalyst for growth, and how her Survive, Reset, Thrive (SRT) framework helps leaders stabilize quickly, reset strategy intelligently, and execute a retail growth strategy that works even in volatile conditions. She also unpacks the realities behind sticky inflation, tariffs, the no‑hire/no‑fire labor market, and the rise of the K‑shaped consumer economy. If you want to build a retail growth strategy that thrives in the face of market shocks, this episode gives you the playbook. What We Cover Why the economic outlook in 2026 is full of contradictions, and what that means for retail How the SRT loop helps leaders stabilize, reset, and thrive Real‑world examples of companies using SRT to turn crises into growth Why averages hide the truth about consumer sentiment The rise of the K‑shaped economy and the death of the “everyman” consumer Value vs. price: why consumers will still pay more for what they truly value How retailers should think about store formats, assortment, and experimentation The must‑win battles for 2026 Where AI actually moves the needle in a retail growth strategy Key Takeaways Uncertainty is the best time to grow: because customers, partners, and employees are more honest about what they value. Value ≠ price. Consumers want their dollar to go further, not necessarily cheaper products. The middle of the market is the danger zone. Retailers must choose: differentiated premium or true value leadership. Retail growth strategy in 2026 requires testing, iteration, and abandoning legacy assumptions. Economic outlook in 2026 signals a decoupling between GDP strength and consumer reality: leaders must plan accordingly. Subscribe & Follow Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://go.retailrazor.com/utube About our Guest Rebecca Homkes, https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-homkes/ https://www.rebeccahomkes.com Author, Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times. https://a.co/d/0aXECIB2 Rebecca Homkes, is a high-growth strategy specialist, CEO and executive advisor. After more than a decade of advising her clients on developing, executing and innovating on strategy, Rebecca is sharing her proven and practical playbook in Survive, Reset, Thrive: Leading Breakthrough Growth Strategy in Volatile Times. She is a Lecturer at the London Business School, Faculty at Duke Corporate Executive Education, Advisor and Faculty at the Boston Consulting Group focused on AI and Climate and Sustainability, and a former fellow at the London School of Economics Centre for Economic Performance. A global keynote speaker and recognized thought leader, she is also the global Faculty Director of the Active Learning Program with the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), leads several fintech accelerators, and serves on the boards of many high-growth companies. She earned her doctorate at the London School of Economics as a Marshall Scholar and is now based in Miami, San Francisco, and London. Chapters 00:00 Teaser 01:10 Show Intro 04:40 Welcome Dr Rebecca Homkes 05:46 The Survive Reset Thrive Framework 08:04 Real World SRT Success Stories 12:55 Macro Economic Outlook for 2026 17:38 Understanding the K Shaped Economy 19:39 Value vs Price Strategy 24:06 Differentiation and Competitive Advantage 26:41 Store Strategy and Expansion 30:37 Consumer Experience and AI 32:34 B2B Software Experience Gap 34:04 Financing and Inventory Strategy 36:28 Supply Chain Robustness 38:10 No Regret Moves 40:40 Defining Right to Win 43:45 Hard Reset Strategy 45:51 Strategic Center of Gravity 48:24 Must Win Battles 49:34 Closing and Contact Info 51:36 Show Close Meet your hosts Helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail, a Top 25 Thought Leader in AGI and Careers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AIand Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Digital Transformation and Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformationand the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Music Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

S6E1 Retail Media’s New Reality: DSP Shifts, Agentic Commerce & Brand Strategy for 2026 Season 6 of The Retail Razor Show kicks off with a deep dive into one of the most important topics in commerce today: retail media. Ricardo and Casey sit down with Jeff Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer at Skai, to unpack the newly released 2026 State of Retail Media Report, created in partnership with Stratably. This episode explores how brands, versus retailers, are navigating the rapid evolution of retail media. From DSP shifts and CTV growth to AI adoption and agentic commerce, measurement challenges, and the widening gap between leaders and laggards, this conversation delivers the insights every brand marketer needs heading into 2026. What We Cover • Why retail media now commands nearly 30% of US digital ad spend • The rise of retail media maturity and what separates leaders from laggards • Why organizational structure is now a top predictor of retail media success • The growing importance of Amazon DSP and Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) • How brands should evaluate incrementality, attribution, and ROI • Why CTV and sponsored brand video are accelerating • The role of AI and agentic commerce in shaping future shopping journeys • What brands must do in 2026 to stay competitive Download the 2026 State of Retail Media Report (free): https://skai.io/reports-and-whitepapers/2026-state-of-retail-media-report/ Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube About our Guests Jeff Cohen, Chief Business Development Officer, Skai https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreycohen/ Jeff Cohen leads global business development at Skai, overseeing partnerships and innovation across the commerce media ecosystem. A recognized thought leader, he is focused on uniting brands, agencies, retailers, and publishers around the next era of growth. Previously, Jeff was Principal Evangelist at Amazon Ads. Chapters: 00:00 Preview Teaser 00:53 Show Intro 03:45 Welcome Jeff Cohen 06:24 Retail Media Maturity and Brand Strategies 08:30 Leaders vs. Laggards in Retail Media 12:12 Organizational Structure and Retail Media Success 17:35 Amazon Ads and DSP Insights 24:36 Evaluating Performance Across Platforms 27:45 The Shift to Full Funnel Advertising 29:46 Challenges in Measurement and Attribution 30:50 The Role of AMC in Retail Media 33:01 Incrementality and Budget Constraints 35:45 AI's Impact on Retail Media 37:10 Strategies for Brands in an AI World 42:54 Key Takeaways and Final Thoughts 48:21 Show Close Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and AGI, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Management, Careers, and Transformation, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Digital Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked, and E-Motive from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.

Agentic Commerce, Retail Media, and the Human Experience: Season 6 Preview Season 6 of The Retail Razor Show is here, and we’re diving into the future of retail through the lens of Agentic Commerce and Retail Media. In this trailer, Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden introduce a season built around the collision of technology, content, and the human experience. As Agentic Commerce reshapes how consumers discover and buy products, Retail Media becomes the environment where every decision is influenced, measured, and optimized. This season builds on the momentum from Season 5, where we explored resilience, digital marketing, sustainability, resale, marketplace strategy, and leadership in an AI saturated world. Now we move into a new era where AI agents may shop on behalf of consumers, and retailers must understand how Agentic Commerce changes engagement, loyalty, and the path to purchase. At the same time, Retail Media continues to expand as a core revenue engine and a critical part of the customer journey. You’ll hear from innovators who are building systems powered by Agentic AI, leaders redefining Retail Media strategy, and operators proving that frontline teams can thrive when technology is designed to support them. This season explores how Agentic Commerce transforms merchandising, planning, and customer experience, and why the human connection still matters more than ever. Follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, TuneIn, iHeartMedia, YouTube, and Goodpods. Stay connected with us on LinkedIn, Blue Sky, Threads, and Instagram. If you want to understand where retail is heading in 2026, this is the podcast for you! Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube Chapters: 00:00 Cold Open 00:23 Intro to Season 6 00:50 Reflecting on Last Season 01:38 Introducing Agentic AI 01:51 The Role of Media in Retail 02:09 Human Connection in a Digital World 03:02 The Era of Agentic Commerce 04:03 Looking Ahead: Innovators and Leaders 04:44 Stay Connected and Engaged Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and AGI, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Management, Careers, and Transformation, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in Agentic AI and Digital Transformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T.

S5E14 2025 Retail Year in Review - AI, Consumer Shifts, and the Future of Commerce with Guest Host, Alicia Esposito! In this Season 5 finale of The Retail Razor Show, guest host Alicia Esposito (Future Commerce) sits down with Ricardo Belmar and Casey Golden for a deep, unfiltered 2025 retail year in review. Together, they unpack the biggest trends shaping the industry, from AI’s accelerating influence, to the emotional needs of today’s consumer, the rise of resale, the evolution of marketplaces, and the shifting definition of value. Across the Retail Razor Podcast Network - The Retail Razor Show, Blade to Greatness, Data Blades, and Retail Transformers - this year’s guests revealed a powerful through line: retail is no longer just about convenience or price. It’s about culture, community, emotion, and the human experience. This episode explores: • How AI is reshaping leadership, decision making, and personalization • Why consumers—especially Gen Z—are craving analog joy and emotional shopping • The rise of marketplaces like Temu and AliExpress • Retail media’s evolution and the coming disruption from agentic commerce • The loyalty shakeout and why brand equity matters more than ever • The explosive growth of resale and secondhand shopping • Holiday shopping behavior and the psychology behind “perpetual shopping lists” • The keywords that will define 2026: velocity and joy If you want to understand where retail is heading in 2026, this is the episode you can’t miss! Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/ Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com Subscribe to our YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/RRShowYouTube About our Guest Host Alicia Esposito, Director, Content + Media Strategy - Future Commerce https://www.linkedin.com/in/aliciaesposito/  Alicia is the head of content and insights for Future Commerce. At Future Commerce we are big on dissecting the intersection of culture and commerce and not just covering what's happening today, but also what are the ripple effects for tomorrow, and for the future. Future Commerce delivers consumer insights for e-commerce and retail brands. Newsletters, essays, podcasts, and research. For the risk-takers in Commerce! Future Commerce helps brands manifest vision and create goals which lead to future-altering impacts for their customers, and for the world around them. Chapters: 00:00 Preview 01:06 Introduction and Host Introduction 03:02 Balancing Automation and Human Intuition 06:57 Consumer Behavior and AI 10:18 The Evolution of Retail Experiences 18:21 The Importance of Brand Value 24:14 Challenges in Fast Fashion and Marketplaces 28:23 The Future of Commerce 31:36 Retail Media Evolution 36:50 Consumer Behavior and Shopping Trends 41:09 The Impact of Resale and Sustainability 50:12 Personalization and AI in Retail 53:16 The Keyword That Will Represent 2026 55:45 Show Close Meet your hosts, helping you cut through the clutter in retail & retail tech: Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voices for 2025 & a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2025. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Retail, & AGI Thought Leader, a Top 50 Management, Transformation, & Careers Thought Leader, a Top 100 Digital Transformation & Agentic AI Thought Leader, plus a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation, and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the director partner marketing for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft. Casey Golden, is CEO of Luxlock, a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 - 2025, and a Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. Obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, now slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! Currently, Casey is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T. Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Overclocked from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.