Merchandising & Store OpsSaturday, September 19, 2026
A 2023 industry report indicates that retailers expect up to 70% of routine in-store tasks to be automated, establishing a baseline for evaluating staff-allocation returns from in-store robotics and RPA.
Fay has secured a $50M Series B funding round to expand its AI-driven personalized nutrition and digital nutritional therapy services.
Queue has emerged from stealth with a $12.6M seed round to deploy fully autonomous robotic pharmacy kiosks that dispense verified vials for 250 top-U.S. medications without an on-site pharmacist.
Microsoft is collaborating with Richtech Robotics to deploy Azure-AI-driven agentic systems in stores that provide conversational recommendations, detect shelf gaps, and adjust to real-time foot traffic.
Amazon Ads introduced agentic AI tools at unBoxed 2025 that automate campaign planning, enable natural-language data queries, and generate display and video creative.
Strategic buyers accounted for 71% of scaled ad-tech deals in 2025, including acquisitions by T-Mobile, The Trade Desk, and Publicis.
