Day one of Shoptalk saw thousands of retailers gathering to shape the future of the industry and soak up insights from the biggest names in retail. 

The brands that truly stand out are solving a real pain point, delivering quality and reliability at great value. While this seems obvious, many brands struggle to deliver all three of these simultaneously.

Consumer advocacy is crucial to validate authenticity.

 over brand messaging. SharkNinja’s Mark Barrocas shared that over 90% of the brand’s December content was UGC—a testament to the power of consumer advocacy. Companies like 

 are helping brands harness UGC effectively.

Andrew Lipsman emphasised that brands need to expand their retail media strategies beyond the store itself to include off-site and in-store, where foot traffic rivals traditional TV audiences.

Among lots of discussions around the importance of building customer relationships, brand storytelling and experiential retail—there was little focus on 

. Given the current macro headwinds, brands need to balance innovation and measurable business impact. 

New AI-enabled tech is an enabler for efficiency, creativity and customer experience, as long as it is integrated thoughtfully. Kim Waldmann highlighted that AI should be seen as part of a holistic strategy rather than a standalone solution.

Day two brought a sharper focus on social listening, consumer advocacy, experimentation and authentic advocacy.

Social listening is now a must-have for engaging Gen Z. 

Engaging with Gen Z requires brands to be both:

Don’t underestimate the power of experimentation and customer testing in product development. 

The best brands adopt a test-and-learn approach and see how people will respond to a prototype, a great way of doing this is putting it on Indiegogo and let people “vote with their wallets.” A prime example of this is 

Your store associates are an untapped marketing force. 

Retailers are beginning to recognise the immense value in tapping into the knowledge of their frontline employees. Unlike shiny TV adverts with paid TV talent, employee-driven content feels authentic, builds trust and ultimately delivers better performance. 

Shoptalk 2025 ended with: focus, innovation and the future of in-store experiences. 

Staying in your lane can be a competitive advantage.

, shared how critical it has been to focus on product quality and consistency and having faith that customers will respond. In a highly competitive wellness market, AG1 has resisted the temptation to diversify too quickly—staying true to its vision and drive for quality which has certainly paid off. 

The ‘Great Summarisation’ is reshaping content strategy

Brands spend millions on content every year, from emails and direct messages to blogs and articles. As platforms like 

Google’s Search Generative Experience (SGE)

 change how users consume information, brands need to rethink their approach to content marketing. The key question discussed at Shoptalk was this: 

How much of the content brands invest in is actually being read by human eyes? 

Brands will need to adapt by prioritising concise, impactful and AI-optimised content strategies to ensure visibility. 

Store performance is back in the spotlight. 

Physical retail is making a comeback as normal shopping habits return, meaning brands are putting in more effort to create incredible store experiences to tempt a new generation of shopper into stores. 

We had the pleasure of meeting two early-stage technologies providing solutions in the space:

Our insights from Shoptalk Las Vegas 2025 show that retail’s future lies in a blend of connecting with the human customer, data-driven strategy and seamless omnichannel experiences. 

Interested in learning more? We’re always asking if there’s a better way — for businesses to grow, create change through technology, and achieve more meaningful success.

After a packed three days of meetings with leading retailers, brands, tech businesses—plus connecting with our US corporate partners, the True team are back from Shoptalk Las Vegas 2025.  

This year’s agenda focused on the four fundamental qualities today’s consumers expect: customer hospitality, value, inspiration and a strong reason for being. With Liam Buswell and Jamie Campbell representing True on the ground in Vegas, here are their insights from this year’s event. 

We're back from Shoptalk Las Vegas 2025

Shoptalk Las Vegas 2025

Consumer, retail and tech specialist investment and advisory firm, True is delighted to welcome 

, former Global CIO of Burberry, as a Senior Advisor. Mark will be joining True’s advisory business, which helps retail and consumer businesses create value through innovation and new technology. His extensive leadership experience in digital strategy and technology-led transformations will further strengthen the firm's ability to add value to its corporate partners and portfolio companies. 

Mark McClennon, MBE, is a distinguished technology leader with a proven track record of driving technological innovation in global companies. As Global 

CIO at Burberry from May 2017 to December 2024, Mark led the luxury brand’s technology strategy, transformation and key digital initiatives. Prior to Burberry, he spent almost three decades in key leadership positions at Unilever, where he served as Consumer CIO. 

In addition to his corporate expertise, Mark has made significant contributions to digital education and skills development. He chaired the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education’s (IfATE) Digital Route Panel for nearly five years and currently serves there as Non-Executive Director. His other board experience includes serving as Non-Executive Director at Bonmarché from April 2016 to August 2019 and he was awarded an MBE for his contributions to digital education and apprenticeships in the King’s Birthday Honours. 

"We are delighted to have Mark join the True team" said Matt Truman, Executive Chair and Co-founder. “Mark’s deep, front-line experience of leading technology for some of the world’s leading consumer brands equips us with a powerful ‘in-house' perspective from a technology advisory and investment perspective."

"True stands out for its ability to bridge the gap between investment and innovation, helping businesses not just adapt but thrive in a fast-changing consumer landscape. Joining a team that shares my passion for digital transformation and business impact is incredibly exciting. I can’t wait to collaborate with the True team to help shape the future of retail and consumer technology."

We are pleased to announce the appointment of former global CIO of Burberry and Unilever's consumer business, Mark McClennon, MBE, as Senior Advisor to True.

True appoints Mark McClennon as Senior Advisor.

True appoints Mark McClennon as Senior Advisor

 in January, it didn’t make as many headlines as it might have, being overshadowed by DeepSeek’s LLM launch and the early signs of what Trump’s comeback means for the world. But beneath the radar, it was a significant step forward for consumer AI Agents, an area where many startups and investors are betting big.

It seems clear that AI will fundamentally reshape the way we all live our lives, but ‘AI’ is such a broad and generic term that it’s almost meaningless when it comes to deeply thinking through what those changes might look like and what opportunities it might create for startups. The problem, though, is that the more specific you dare to be, the more likely you are to be completely off the mark. As the saying goes: 

“It is better to be vaguely right than exactly wrong.”

We disagree. When things are changing so quickly and we’re continuously developing our thesis on how things might play out, we think it’s better for our work-in-progress opinions to be “exactly wrong rather than vaguely right.” Teasing out the nuance helps us ask better questions of ourselves and founders without getting deafened by generic narrative and buzzwords. We believe coupling a comfort with being “exactly wrong” and a willingness to evolve our views based on strong counterarguments helps us iterate more quickly towards a better perspective.

With that said, we wanted to lay out some initial thinking on AI Agents in consumer journeys to prompt discussion.

Our oversimplified (work-in-progress) categorisation is this:

Already, that’s clearly flawed. The reality is that there is a spectrum of Assistant to Agent within different products and consumer journeys.

On the Assistant end of the spectrum, we think about something like ChatGPT. To be overly reductionist, AI Assistants are really about better Search. This is already a massive deal: evolving from “a list of potentially useful links for people like you” to “the most likely best answer for you” is a stepchange - 

 in just over two years from launch isn’t bad! But it remains a fundamentally user-directed journey.

At the opposite end of the spectrum sits some of the ‘futurecasting’ speculation you hear from the most excited advocates, which broadly boils down to: “AI will know everything about you and solve everything for you without lifting a finger.” Do your groceries. Book your holidays. Fill your wardrobe with things that make you look more like Chris Hemsworth. And so on to utopia.

In the messy middle sits Operator’s current apparent level of sophistication. It can take action on your behalf (e.g. pre-filling your basket on Instacart, or finding the highest-rated tour in Rome) but it doesn’t (yet) complete the end-to-end transaction. It’s an Assistant with some agency, so definitely 

agentic than ChatGPT, but not an Agent in its strictest sense. At least for now.

A key question we’re debating is: when will consumers be more likely to trust an AI Agent to take action on their behalf, rather than just assist? As exciting as the prospect of outsourcing large portions of our lives to AI Agents might be, there are clear reasons why adoption may be slower than some expect. Here are some key factors that could hold them back:

Not all decisions can be boiled down to clear, structured instructions. For visual categories like furniture, apparel and art, the experience of looking through the options isn’t just about finding a match within a well-defined criteria, it’s about 

the criteria to begin with. If we don’t know what we want until we see it, can an AI Agent truly deliver the best outcome?

Some types of shopping are part function, part enjoyment. Browsing for travel destinations, discovering new fashion brands, or exploring niche wines isn’t just about finding the “best” option - it’s about the process of exploration and discovery. AI Assistants can help narrow down choices, but will users want to miss out on big parts of the fun?

Too much curation can backfire. Consumers want guidance, but not at the cost of feeling like they’re missing out on options they would have explored themselves, particularly within categories they know well or have strong opinions on. If I trust my own research and instincts, will I really delegate an important choice to an AI Agent?

4. If There’s a High FOFU (Fear of Frustrated User)

The more complex the request, the more opportunities for an AI Agent to get it wrong. 

Much harder. Over time, AI Agents will improve at understanding user preferences, but will consumers tolerate the inevitable mistakes along the way or just opt to do it themselves?

Decision-making isn’t always consistent. A business traveler might prioritise comfort and convenience over cost, while the same person might be price-sensitive when booking a family holiday. Will AI Agents have enough context to accurately adjust for these shifting priorities without needing constant micromanagement?

Some choices rely on emotional or subconscious factors - things that are hard for AI to quantify. The difference between two restaurants with similar ratings might come down to ambiance, personal memories, or a brand’s identity. Can AI really make 

 judgment calls that feel right as well as being the logically ‘optimal’ choice?

Trust is a major hurdle. Today, we know search engines are ad-driven, but we also know we can scroll past the paid results. AI Agents shift the paradigm from 

 Without transparency on who is paying and how, will users believe the AI Agent is truly working in their best interest rather than selling them to the highest bidder?

As in any context, there’s a risk of over-delegation for stuff that really matters. Taking the plunge on an AI Agent completing tasks where the monetary, time and/or emotional stakes are low makes sense. But when it comes to more important things like legal matters or personal finances, having the human in the loop as the ultimate decision-maker is a feature, not a bug.

Many of the above factors boil down to a simple equation inspired by 

Scott Galloway’s “algebra of disincentives”

. In short, true agency is more likely if:

Probability of Bad Outcome x Severity of Bad Outcome < Hassle Factor of DIY 

In other words, the adoption of Agents will be limited to contexts where the downside risk is less than the hassle of a user doing it themselves. The ‘Probability of Bad Outcome’ will drop over time as technology and context improves, but we’re skeptical it will reach zero across the board.

To illustrate, here’s a rough framework we’ve been playing with for where AI is more (or less) likely to be truly agentic for certain tasks:

It’s not perfect, by any stretch: there is likely plenty of ‘exactly wrong’ in here. But as a general framework to kickstart our thinking, we’re finding it pretty useful.

AI Agents are coming, but their success will depend on more than just capability. Consumer behavior is driven by psychology, trust, and habit. The best early use cases will be simple, transactional, and low-risk. Over time, as trust builds and models improve, we may see more consumers hand off complex, higher-stakes decisions. But we’re not there yet.

Where do you think AI Agents will break through first? Tell us where we’re exactly wrong.

And if you’re a founder tackling these problems, we’d love to hear from you!

AI Agents show promise but face adoption challenges, with success likely first in simple, routine tasks where downsides are minimal compared to the hassle of doing it yourself. Joe's blog explores the spectrum from AI Assistants to true Agents, examining when consumers will trust AI to act independently rather than just assist.

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