NRF 2025: Decoding Signals Beyond the AI Echo Chamber

Hey everyone and welcome to Spieckerman Speaks Retail with me, Carol Spieckerman. I've been knee-deep in B2B retail sales and marketing for my entire career, and I know how hard it is to stand out from the crowd. So I launched my consulting business with a clear mission - help retail technology and solution providers sharpen their market positioning so they can get credit for the great stuff they're already doing. Through my workshops, advisory services, and thought leadership platforms, we'll bridge the gap between where retail is headed next and how your solutions fit into that future.

My podcast curates fresh takes on the wide world of retail through my latest retail trajectories and interviews with experts who help us chart the course to what's next. Well, this week, we're cranking up another season of the podcast, and it's right on the heels of NRF, which I have to say was one of the better versions I've attended over the years. Yes, the corporate-speak was out in full force, but this year, I thought it was really well balanced with some unguarded moments and real insights.

And I walked away from NRF with an observation that stopped me in my tracks. While everyone was buzzing about AI, retail's biggest names are actually going back to basics. And there's some fascinating reasons why. If you've been anywhere near retail news in the last week, your inbox and social feeds have probably been jammed with recaps from the industry's biggest event of the year.

As you might have expected, artificial intelligence dominated a lot of those conversations. But here's the thing, in the quiet moments between sessions, in hallways humming with candid conversations, I kept hearing something different. Something that tells us more about retail's future than any AI demo could. Now don't get me wrong, the AI discussions were as fascinating as they were unavoidable.

But as I reflected on my conversations with retailers, brands, technology leaders, and clients across that spectrum, I kept coming back to several fundamental shifts that are already reshaping retail in 2025. Some of these definitely intersect with AI, but they're bigger than any single technology. So, in today's episode, I want to explore some of those deeper currents that were churning beneath the surface, both from the formal presentations at the show, and perhaps more tellingly, in those candid conversations that were happening over coffee and cocktails.

So let's dive in and start with something that's keeping retailers awake at night, but it has surprisingly little to do with artificial intelligence. An identity crisis. Retailers and brands from Burberry to Target to Macy's, Foot Locker, and others, all acknowledge the urgency around getting new generations of shoppers excited about their brands. But here's the uncomfortable truth that so many of them are wrestling with: they're struggling just to keep their current customer bases engaged.

And I use the term “brands” here intentionally because brand identity is at the heart of the problem. Are Target, Macy's, and Foot Locker really brands? Were they ever brands? And if so, have they since evolved to become just places that sell brands?

Hey, there's no shame in that game, but it is a problem when you think you're a brand and you no longer really are. Because if you think of yourself as a brand, then building, promoting, and maybe even defending that brand becomes your top priority. But when you acknowledge that maybe you're more of a place that sells brands You focus on building, promoting, and showcasing the brands you sell, and ideally in ways that others aren't. Again, there's no right answer here, but it is about having clarity of purpose that informs your actions.

Back in May, Foot Locker CEO Mary Dillon said, “Instead of a wall of shoes, it's really a house of brands”. In her NRF interview, Mary did a masterful job of navigating those two identities, providing updates on Foot Locker's multifaceted Lace Up brand renewal plan, while giving big shout-outs to Foot Locker's brand partners…including Nike, which famously backed off of wholesale relationships with retailers like Foot Locker as it leaned into propping up its own brand platform.

Only to rethink that strategy and ramp up those wholesale partnerships once again. Speaking of identity navigation, let's talk about Walmart's just announced controversial sort-of brand refresh. Walmart recently weathered some snark from the peanut gallery because it released what it unfortunately, decided to call a comprehensive brand refresh, the result of which was a near-imperceptible tweak to its logo. But here's what most critics missed - While other retailers are doing splashy rebrands that scream, “Look at me!

” Walmart's subtle approach actually demonstrates profound self-awareness. Like Foot Locker, Walmart knows that coming off as a self-important grandiose brand would be well, off-brand! So, it's the subtlety of the revision that underscores that Walmart sees itself as a platform that supports other brands. Even so, Walmart was just ranked as the fifth most valuable brand in the world, with the first four being tech companies.

Sometimes knowing exactly who you are is more powerful than trying to be everything to everyone. But this brings us to a palpable tension that I've been tracking. For years, one of my top retail mantras has been “the core is no more” as retailers open online marketplaces filled with all kinds of new categories, some of which have nothing to do with their fundamental business. For category killers in particular, marketplaces are an irresistible diversification play and a growth driver.

Best Buy shut down its first marketplace eight years ago only to open the floodgates to third-party sellers once again. And retailers are also branching out into more non-product business models like retail media, healthcare and so on. So, when the core is no more, retailers do run a risk of going so far afield that they become virtual and physical containers for all kinds of stuff, rather than a true brand with a clear identity and mission. But this year at NRF, I heard a contradicting mantra echoing through the halls of Javits: “Don't kill the core!

” Josh Shulman, Burberry's CEO, talked about its Burberry Forward plan to reignite brand desire by, wait for it, refocusing on the core outerwear and scarves that made Burberry “Burberry” to begin with. For Foot Locker, basketball is front and center court again. It's the category that Mary Dillon said brought Foot Locker to the party. So refreshed Foot Locker stores feature a home court multi-brand basketball showcase that they developed in partnership with Foot Locker's top basketball brands.

I visited the ultimate embodiment of this shiny new premise as part of my private retail safari in New York during NRF, and everyone in the group agreed that Foot Locker's flagship marked a massive improvement in customer experience. And now we have Kohl's under yet another new leader, undoing multiple far-flung initiatives that customers are saying are giving them the wandering eye. In other words, Kohl's, too, is being called back to the core. But this return to fundamentals isn't just about products.

It's about people, too. Customer retention is an ongoing obsession for retailers, for sure. But I noticed something interesting, and I think heartening, this year. Retailers are focusing more and more on engaging and acknowledging store associates, even as technology steals the spotlight.

You've heard me say that high tech drives high touch. It's been one of my top retail trajectories for many years running. It was in full bloom at NRF. Walmart's latest mission mantra, “people led, technology-powered”, is practically synonymous and interchangeable with the high tech drives high touch mantra.

Cedric Clark, Walmart's EVP of store operations, is a really awesome speaker. Very few people can spin stories on the fly the way Cedric can, and he has a real gift for distilling complex ideas into common-sense takeaways. He said, “Knowing that a company's investing in technology that makes my job easier? I'm going to want to work there”.

So he hit on something crucial there. Technology is not just about customer experience anymore. It's becoming a key factor in associate recruitment and retention. AX is the new CX.

And that's a game changer. This people-first approach was everywhere. Going back to Mary Dillon, she talked about how Foot Locker stripers, you know, those guys and gals in the striped umpire shirts in their stores? She talked about how they're experts in sneaker culture, so tech should just be a fun and efficient way to support them.

Target devoted an entire session to highlighting its training and education programs for associates, including its Store Companion associate chatbot. I think Inna Larson, Ulta Beauty’s head of IT Strategy, captured it perfectly when she talked about the benefits of including associates and developing the technology they'll actually be using. She said, “People help support what they help create”. This empowerment of associates is leading to something we haven't seen in retail for a long time - the return of authority.

That word came up repeatedly in multiple contexts. Technology as an enabler of authority for store associates. Sharpening authority through training, but also brands validating their return to the core as a way of reclaiming category authority. So for quite some time, retailers and brands have been really reluctant to revive that concept of authority.

It seemed presumptuous and tone-deaf to talk about being an authority at a time when consumer primacy and declarations that the consumers in charge just ruled the day. But I always say that insecurity is the root of all evil. And that certainly holds true for retailers and brands. So I love seeing the confidence that it takes to reclaim authority.

And this is definitely true for solution providers too. They made up the majority of exhibitors at NRF, and they're also the biggest cohort in my advisory business. These days, if you lack confidence in what you're selling, you're toast, because as many upsides as there are to the democratization of powerful technologies like AI, it also means it's harder to stand out, because everybody has access to the same tools. Another interesting thread that I pulled out of the show ties into a couple of my evergreen trajectories.

“Brand ubiquity is the new exclusivity”, and more recently “a wholesale heyday is underway”. But here's where we hit a contradiction, one that tells us a lot about where retail is heading. Amazon CEO of Worldwide Stores, Doug Herrington, shared some historical snippets about Amazon's evolution and some of them were pretty humbling. He reminded us of several of Amazon's flops, including its ill-fated auction site.

Do you remember that? Well, I do, and I also remember how it spurred all these predictions that Amazon was flailing and heading nowhere. But here's the key insight. Doug said that Amazon finally hit on its most important proposition, selection, which later evolved to essentially being about selection at speed.

And, of course, Amazon just keeps taking that speed part of the equation to new heights. But the game-changer on the selection front? That was when Amazon opened its platform to third-party sellers back in 2000. Brands had already started diversifying through licensing deals and owned retail by then, but Amazon's digital marketplace put all that on steroids, taking that brand ubiquity movement up several notches.

Doug summed it up perfectly by saying, “We knew that people aren't going to wake up and say, ‘I want higher prices and less selection’”. But then, in another panel, Macy's CEO and Chairman, Tony Spring, gave what felt like a direct counterpoint to that, arguing that department stores offer, “curation of choice”, and that Macy's brings what he called the “best aisle” to shoppers. So the contrast couldn't have been more striking. Tony was explicitly positioning Macy's curated experience against the endless digital aisles that you find on Amazon.

He even suggested that “marketplace” might be a better term for what Macy's brings to the table. So which is it? Are consumers craving endless selection or curated choice? Is Macy's a marketplace or an arbiter of what you're really going to like?

The answer might be both, and that's where the wholesale heyday comes into play. Burberry's CEO spoke about how Nordstrom plays a crucial role in its success, noting that if all Burberry had were its own brick-and-mortar stores, customers might visit maybe once a year for gift-giving or to buy a statement piece. Nordstrom drives frequency for Burberry, which in turn keeps the awareness going for the brand. Tony from Macy's reinforced this by saying that Macy believes in what he called the “fulsomeness” of brands like Burberry.

In other words, Macy's is reasserting its authority as a curator of choice and a flagship location for brands, recognizing that the wholesale heyday is all about driving the diversification and awareness that very few brands can achieve just through direct-to-consumer. Is Macy's a brand? Well, let's just say that it isn't shying away from being a place with brands these days. I'm not going to dig into the AI innovation progression that's getting a lot of traction right now, from generative AI to agentic AI and on to physical AI and so on.

There are some great sources for that, including the CEO of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang's amazing and very long keynote address at this year's CES. I want to highlight a different conversation about AI's future and what was happening in the quieter corners of NRF. The concept of enterprise thinking came up multiple times. The fact is, many of these companies, especially forward-looking beauty giants like Ulta and fast fashion pioneers like H&M, have been using AI for years.

They jumped in early, and it's not a new thing for them. What is new, though, is pulling it out of various functional silos and focusing on cross-functional synergies and cross-functional accountability. When it comes to AI, we're seeing a growing recognition that everyone needs to be accountable and knowledgeable, not just IT. And we need guardrails to ensure that AI is used responsibly and in a way that supports rather than compromises brand integrity.

I was so impressed that Alta, Tapestry, Sainsbury's, NVIDIA, and others were going beyond the hype to tackle some of these thornier issues. But there were also some rumblings about the fundamental organizational shifts that'll need to happen to realize the full promise of AI. It can't just get slapped onto existing responsibilities. And as more potential is unlocked, dedicated teams will or should expand and work will evolve.

NVIDIA's CEO made a bold prediction at CES when he said, “In the future, the IT department of every company will be the HR department of AI agents”. This increasing complexity will be an everyday reality. But it can derail opportunities, particularly as retailers lean even harder into non-product profit centers like retail media and advertising for growth. What I call the “solutions and services shift” in retail.

Consumers are no longer retailers’ only customers. Retailers are invested in selling solutions and services to brands, and it's in their best interest to keep it simple as they do. The head of Target's Roundell Media Network addressed this head-on when she said, “Just because we have complexity in our platform, our brand partners shouldn't feel that”. So, as we look ahead to the rest of 2025, here's what I'm watching most closely: This tension between going back to basics while pushing into new frontiers.

The return to core strengths? That's not about playing it safe. It's about building a solid foundation for innovation. High tech is amplifying, not replacing human touch.

People power isn't going away, but it's evolving as AX becomes the new CX. Retailers and brands are discovering their voice and their valor. They're embracing the audacity of authority, even as they navigate the paradox of brand ubiquity. The solutions and services shift is gaining momentum, pushed forward by AI, but tempered by a healthy respect for complexity.

Enterprise thinking is finally breaking down silos, while the focus on accountability and responsibility with regard to AI isn't being pushed aside. The real story from NRF 2025 isn't about a single technology or trend. It's about how retail is learning to balance innovation with identity, technology with humanity, and complexity with clarity, and that's a story worth watching. Thank you for listening in today.

I hope you enjoyed the episode, and if you did, you can invite me to your organization or event to bring conversations like this to life in your spaces. This is what I do for a living, B2B coaching, training, and executive consulting. If it has anything to do with retail thought leadership, B2B market positioning, and business development, it's probably something I can help you with. If you're interested in how we can work together, reach out to me at spieckermanretail.

com or email team@spieckermanretail.com to book a discovery call. Charting the course and plotting the next trajectory, until next time!