Shoptalk Europe 2026: AI, Discovery, and the Future of Retail

That’s a wrap on Shoptalk Europe 2026—and what a week it was.
This year’s speaker tracks explored themes that felt especially close to home for us at Algolia: redefining retail in the age of AI, deepening customer connections through engaging retail experiences, and capturing attention while accelerating discovery. Needless to say, we felt right at home.

The show floor was buzzing with retailers, technology providers, and partners. We were especially excited to spend time with many of our ecosystem partners throughout the week. One highlight was a packed happy hour hosted alongside Commercetools and Contentstack, complete with atmospheric pressure soda bottles transformed into afternoon Aperol Spritzes, great conversations, and plenty of networking.

Also at the Algolia booth, attendees joined us for a series of presentations exploring the future of AI-powered discovery. Sessions included:

• Own the Agent or Lose the Customer, featuring a customer story on using agentic search and discovery to elevate the customer experience.
• Turning Black Friday Data Into Action, focused on transforming holiday performance data into actionable business strategy.
• Agentic Search Experiences, showcasing customers already live with Algolia Agent Studio and sharing what’s possible with AI-powered discovery today.

One particularly notable session from the broader conference was Transforming Digital Shopping Experiences with Data + AI. During the discussion, an Algolia customer highlighted something we couldn’t agree with more: great AI experiences start with great data.
Clean, structured, and enriched data is foundational to delivering relevant search results, personalized recommendations, and effective retrieval across digital experiences. Solutions like Algolia Data Transformations and Data Enrichment help retailers maximize the value of their data, improving relevance and creating stronger customer experiences from search.

The Shoptalk Europe Retail Zeitgeist

One of the perennial crowd favorites at Shoptalk is the Retail Zeitgeist, where the Shoptalk team shares its predictions for the future of retail. This year’s outlook focused on four key areas:

The Impact of AI on Retail

AI adoption during the shopping journey continues to accelerate.
According to Shoptalk's research, 37% of U.S. shoppers reported using AI while shopping in November 2025. By February 2026, that figure had already increased to 47%.

Consumers are increasingly turning to AI-powered answer engines to research products and gather information. However, most shoppers are not yet comfortable letting AI make purchasing decisions on their behalf. Nearly half of survey respondents (49%) use answer engines as a research assistant, while only 14% view them as a true co-decision maker.

Changing Consumer Behavior

The impact of GLP-1 medications continues to reshape shopping habits, particularly across grocery and consumer packaged goods.

Among surveyed GLP-1 users, 46% reported changing their primary grocery retailer after beginning treatment, highlighting how shifts in lifestyle can quickly influence retail behavior.

The presentation also highlighted growing momentum behind recommerce. Fashion resale continues to outpace overall fashion market growth, with affordability emerging as the primary driver. While the overall fashion market grew by approximately 2% in 2025, fashion resale is projected to grow at a 13% compound annual growth rate.

Physical Store Evolution

Physical stores are becoming increasingly personalized.
The Zeitgeist team predicted that retailers will gain a deeper understanding of in-store shoppers through three major unlocks:

• In-store retail media
• Next-generation loyalty programs
• Reduced friction from anti-theft measures and checkout experiences

Together, these developments could make brick-and-mortar experiences significantly more personalized in the years ahead.

Operations & Supply Chain

Automation is back in the spotlight.

Major investments in fulfillment automation from companies such as Walmart, Amazon, Ocado, and Rohlik Group suggest that automated ecommerce fulfillment is entering a new phase of growth.

The presentation also pointed to a shift from traditional demand planning toward demand sensing, with agility becoming an increasingly important business priority. In fact, the term "agility" has appeared with growing frequency on recent corporate earnings calls, reflecting the need for retailers to respond more quickly to changing customer behavior and market conditions.

Looking Ahead

One of our favorite parts of Shoptalk is seeing Algolia customers take the stage to share how they're innovating. This year was no exception. From conversations about data quality and relevance to real-world implementations of agentic AI, it was exciting to see retailers embracing the next generation of discovery experiences.

We left Barcelona energized by the momentum across the industry and inspired by the conversations we had with customers, partners, and retail leaders throughout the week.

Algolia is a leading AI Search and Discovery platform, powering more than 1.75 trillion queries annually for over 18,000 businesses worldwide. Our unified keyword and vector search engine delivers exceptional speed, scalability, and relevance—helping organizations build intelligent, agentic, and generative experiences that connect customers with what they need, faster.