More CommerceNext Steps: 2026’s Top Retail Insights & Strategies

Looking for even more actionable ideas from the 2026 Growth Show? We’ve gathered another collection of CommerceNext Steps directly from Growth Show sessions, featuring practical advice from the retail and DTC executives shaping the industry’s future.

These bite-sized takeaways highlight proven strategies you can put to work right away.

 

Unpacking the 2026 State of Agentic Commerce Report

Pooja Chandiramani, VP, Global Marketing Analytics and Media Strategy, Coach        

Dan Bennett, Co-Founder & Chief Marketing Officer, Furniture.com     

Caila Schwartz, Director Industry Insights, Salesforce

1. Data is the foundation. Addressing data quality, integration, governance, and skills gaps is essential for organizations to evolve AI from experimental projects into lasting enterprise value.
2. Omnichannel is a mandate. Unification is the prerequisite for the revenue-generating capabilities commerce leaders are prioritizing.
3. Build for the fragmented journey. Ensuring consistent product presence is a different problem than it was two years ago. Content and product feeds are more important than ever before.
4. Supercharge growth. Expansion challenges stem from regulatory, localization, & operational complexities. Prioritize repeatable models that standardize infrastructure but are flexible enough to meet local requirements & expectations.

 

The Retail AI Reality Check: Lessons from the Frontlines

Noam Paransky, Board Member, ThredUp 

Meyar Sheik, Global President, Insider One

1. Focus on problems, not the hype. Don’t look for ways to use AI; look for your biggest operational bottlenecks
2. Buy the platform, own the data. Leverage commercialized tools for speed; keep your internal data for differentiation
3. Shift from “replacement” to “superpowers.” AI won’t replace retail teams, but retail teams using AI will replace those who don’t

 

The Compounding Advantage of Building Marketing Programs That Learn

Vivian Chang, Frmr VP Ecommerce, GNC

Meera Murthy, GM & VP of Product, Bloomreach

1. The next marketing advantage is speed of learning, not size of budget
2. AI’s real value isn’t execution—it’s continuous strategic refinement
3. Every campaign should feed the next one; if it doesn’t, you’re leaving value on the table
4. Start small: pick one channel and build the feedback loop there first
5. The marketer’s role is evolving toward teaching and directing AI, not just operating it

 

Move Beyond AI Hype with Smarter Messaging, Stronger Trust and Better Performance

Reed Pankratz, Director, CRM Marketing, The Vitamin Shoppe

Craig Shields, CDO, JTV

Eric Miao, Chief Strategy Officer, Attentive 

Moderated by: Scott Silverman, Co-Founder, CommerceNext

1. AI success is both an organizational and a technology challenge. Making it work means being prepared for change management, team adoption, and new ways of working.
2. When it comes to AI that involves customer data or proprietary company information, governance is a prerequisite. It’s not about handing the AI keys over to the entire team without approval processes in place with legal and IT. Secure data environments, brand guardrails, and compliance standards must be in place before expanding AI-driven marketing.
3. Have a process for incorporating brand voice into messaging. Be open to stretching your brand voice, but have guard rails and human oversight in place to ensure to prevent brand voice drift and generic messaging.
4. Use AI as a testing engine for channel, timing and frequency — not just as a content engine. Let AI help determine the sequence, place and frequency of messages.

 

Why Most AI in Marketing Fails — And How to Fix the Foundation

Joshua Tjong, Head of Research and Insights, Treasure AI

1. Outcomes for AI in Marketing are tied to your foundations, not the underlying models.
2. Run an audit on your data foundations.
3. Build your human-driven Customer Intelligence Loop, powered by the speed of AI.

 

Marketing Accountability in 2026: What Retail Leaders Need to Measure Now

Lauren Price, SVP of Marketing & Communications, COS

Steph Laures, Chief Digital Officer, Todd Snyder

Melissa Racklin – SVP Growth, PebblePost 

• Marketing is no longer grading its own homework. Align reporting around business outcomes that can withstand executive scrutiny

• Reported performance and business impact aren’t always the same thing. Use testing, incrementality and transaction-level insights to better understand what is driving revenue

• The most efficient strategy isn’t always the most effective. Balance near-term acquisition performance with long-term customer revenue growth. 

 

From Anonymous to Known: How PrettyLitter Built a $2.2M Revenue Engine with Identity and Loyalty

Ali Cassis, SVP of Customer Success, Digioh

Matthew Seifert, VP of CRM & Loyalty, PrettyLitter

1. Start with identification, not campaigns. Find out how much of your traffic is anonymous. The number will surprise you. 
2. Make your identity layer the connective tissue. ID only works  when it’s connected. Link your ESP, your loyalty platform, and your onsite experiences.
3. Let behavioral data drive the targeting. Stop broadcasting to your full list and reach the right person, at the right time. 

 

You Can’t Convert Who You Don’t Know. Here’s How to Fix That

Sarah Townsend, Retention Marketing, rag & bone

Alexandra Conners, Sr. Director, Product Marketing, Wunderkind

1. Identity resolution is the foundation, not a feature. AI-powered personalization only works when it’s attached to data that’s accurate and trustworthy.
2. Context is what makes data actionable. Reacting to a review like “these jeans run too long” is meaningless without knowing the reviewer’s height. 
3. A unified profile unlocks what segmentation can’t. By combining behavioral signals, purchase history, propensity scores, and loyalty data, genuine one-to-one decisioning is possible.
4. Data-informed offers protect the brand while driving conversion. Behavior- and attribute-based offers let brands give discounts only to customers who need them.
5. The cost of delay compounds. Some purchases will resist full automation, but investing in a deep data foundation now will position brands to better capitalize on AI as it matures.

 

Creators as a Performance Channel

Tracy Bay, EVP & Head of Ecommerce, J.Crew

Jack Riker, SVP, ShopMy

1. Keep creators on year-round. Tentpole moments perform best when creators have already been sharing your products with their audience.
2. Ditch the brief. When a product is introduced organically, it lands like a recommendation.
3. Maximize your creator program. Think of your creators as a performance channel, not just a PR destination. 

 

Personalizing at Scale Without Losing the Brand

Nipun Joshi, AVP Product and AI Experiences, Fareportal

Mrinal Parekh, Marketing Lead – North America, Clevertap

• Automate the transaction, not the relationship. AI excels at timing, sequencing, and relevance — but the moments that build loyalty (a recovery email, a win-back offer) still benefit from a human voice behind them. Know which is which before you automate everything.

• Personalization that surprises a customer is valuable. Personalization that unsettles them is a liability. Audit your AI-driven touchpoints regularly for moments where relevance tips into surveillance — customers notice, even if they don’t say so.

•  Brand voice is a guardrail, not an afterthought. Before scaling AI-generated content, document what your brand would never say. Teams that define the boundaries first move faster — and make fewer expensive mistakes.

 

Agentic Post-Purchase as a Strategic Growth Engine

Laura Uruchima, Director of Customer Success, Authentic Brands Group

Victor Black, head of Customer Success, Seel

1. Post-purchase is a direct driver of whether a customer comes back. Brands that treat it as a strategic retention lever, not an afterthought, have a meaningful edge.
2. A bad experience that gets resolved well can be more powerful than a perfect one. How a brand handles things when they go wrong matters as much as getting it right the first time.
3. At scale, human judgment alone can’t cover every resolution. The brands pulling ahead thoughtfully combine automation and AI with human touchpoints, knowing when each earns trust, and build the operational infrastructure to deliver that consistently.
4. The post-purchase experience looks different across customer segments and brand identities. The brands getting it right build something that fits their business, not a generic solution. 

 

Maintaining a High Bar for Customer Experience at Scale

Jonathan Wu, CEO, Cavalry

ZhuMei Chen, Sr. Manager, CX Harry’s & Flamingo, Mammoth Brands

1. Most AI tools deflect or respond. The bar has moved. If your AI explains how to cancel a subscription but doesn’t actually cancel it, you’ve saved internal time and added customer friction.
2. “Resolution” should mean the backend action happened, the customer was confirmed, and the ticket closed. Not “the chatbot replied within 30 seconds.” 
3. A single hallucination on a return policy or order status can cost more trust than 100 deflected tickets save in cost. Don’t optimize for automation rate without measuring accuracy

 

From AI readiness and identity resolution to creator marketing and customer experience, the biggest takeaway from this year’s Growth Show is clear: the retailers pulling ahead are building smarter foundations for long-term growth.

Want to be part of next year’s conversations? Pre-register for the 2027 CommerceNext Growth Show to hear the latest retail marketing insights firsthand and connect with the leaders shaping the future of retail.