Key Lessons from the NRF Big Show 2025: AI, Privacy, and RFID

NRF Big Show 2025 has officially wrapped up, and what an event it was. This year, it brought together retailers, vendors, academics, financiers, and even students from across the globe to tackle some of the most pressing trends, challenges, and opportunities in retail. As NRF often likes to point out, retail employs over 25% of the workforce in the United States. It’s hard to imagine another industry that touches everyone one daily like retail. At the same time, margins in retail are notoriously thin, often in the range of 3% - 7%. In order to thrive, retailers innovate throughout their business in everything from processes, staffing and training, and certainly technology. And speaking of technology, that’s where the NRF Big Show really shines, so let's start there. 

AI Took Center Stage – and Pretty Much Every Stage 

Unsurprisingly, AI was ubiquitous – so much so that the show might as well have been rebranded to “NRF AI Show.” AI was everywhere to the point of oversaturation, almost becoming a meme. For context, over 60% of the presentations included AI in the title. AI appeared in some way on probably 80% of vendor booths (in fairness, our booth too).  

One retail executive coined the phrase “AI-numbness,” which she explained as “now I have to spend even more time figuring out what is real versus hype.” Another executive articulated something I’ve been saying for years about AI, ML, and frankly all technology for decades: “I have the same answer when people ask me about my AI strategy. I don’t have one. I do have a strategy to deliver a superior customer experience and if AI or any technology can help me do that, fantastic.” Amen. Technology is an enabler not a strategy. We should always start with identifying the business problem, then apply the right mix of people, processes, and technology to solve it.   

To be clear, my issue isn’t with AI itself but with the overblown promises from some so-called “AI solutions.” I’d estimate that a good 75% of them don't live up to their claims. I’ve lived through a lot of technology hype. You know the hype is real when no one talks about it anymore and it’s just part of everyday life. AI got there much faster than any other technological advancement I’ve lived through. I think this is in part because people, not only businesses, have embraced it. I can tell you that every part of my organization uses AI daily. Our productivity and efficiency have improved, even skyrocketed.  

From Agilence’s product perspective, productivity and efficiency is our focus with AI. We are using AI to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio (had to let a bit of my electrical engineering background in here) when it comes to Total Retail Loss. Features like our AI Fraud Score are designed to identify potential fraud, theft, and shrink, so teams can focus where it matters most—on driving profit and reducing loss – and filter out the noise. 

Privacy Concerns  

While AI dominated the headlines, privacy concerns simmered just below the surface. We are at the doorstep of the next era of personal privacy concerns. It’s one thing to protect your data when you know who might have it, such as the companies you allow to use it in exchange for convenience and rewards (e.g. loyalty programs). With cameras literally everywhere, who has your personally identifiable information is anyone’s guess. How it is used is even more concerning.   

Consider the murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. It was a camera that led to an arrest. In many ways, law enforcement is at the forefront here. They have had to enact policies that correspond to existing laws, especially concerning illegal search and seizures. After all they are ultimately building evidence that could be entered into a criminal prosecution, and they need all the evidence to be admissible.  

Consider further that retailers have a large portion of available surveillance video out there. How is it used? Based on NRF Big Show insights, that information is used to drive better customer experiences – simpler shopping, faster finding of items, personalization, and safety. The most successful companies implement policies first on what data is collected, particularly with video, and how it is to be used. That translates into staff training for corporate analysts to front line workers who interact daily with your customers. The early benefits indicate companies are being responsible but expect a flood of cases to pass through the legal system and legislation both at the state and federal level.  

RFID’s Moment 

The top three topics at the show were AI, customer experience, and RFID. They are intertwined as you can use AI to understand what your customers want and RFID to see where the item is, both of which improve your customer experience. RFID has been around for over 60 years, but it is finally having its well-deserved day. RFID prices have plummeted combined with the necessary technology to track items individually, not at the SKU level, but item-by-item. Has the item moved from the back of the store to the front? Did an item exit the store? What items are people trying on in the dressing rooms and in what combinations? Now you can not only run physical inventory every day, but you can also start understanding customer intent so you can promote items that may frequently sell with each other.  

IHL Group calculates inventory distortion as a $1.7 trillion-dollar problem. Inventory goes missing from theft; inventory goes bad due to expiration or out-of-season; inventory disappears out of distribution centers or in transit. Agilence has worked closely with our customers and technology partners to create comprehensive inventory analytics that provide actionable insights to address inventory fluctuations and adjustments. Recently, we added an RFID Module which provides even more analytics at the store level and for online purchases. The RFID Module can give you visibility into all your inventory so you can prevent theft, ensure you have the right product assortment, and assist with suspicious returns.   

Data is the Foundation 

Take again some main show themes – AI, privacy, RFID, sustainability, customer experience – and it all depends on data. The thing that surprised me most was how seldom the necessity of carefully curated data was mentioned. It did get mentioned here and there but mostly with people holding technology titles. It’s these people who manage the teams who wrestle with the complexities and possibilities that data can unlock, so perhaps it should be expected. 

Good data should not be taken for granted. It’s hard to get data into a usable state and hard to keep it like that. And yet, everything depends on it. One presenter acknowledged data as the lifeblood of their business. I think that is an appropriate sentiment. Nothing works properly if the data is wrong, and even worse, business hurts itself by making bad decisions based on faulty or dirty or incomplete data. Your AI models can predict the wrong things to order or annoy your customers with offers they don’t care about.   AI projects are currently failing at 70% rate.  Many times, the ultimate culprit was the data or the lack of understanding of what the data requirements are.  

There is a reason the largest retailers and the smallest retailers are winning the data wars. The big companies can afford to invest in the data and the smallest companies get the data right from the beginning because they understand it is essential. The companies in between need to invest thoughtfully or be crushed by the giants or outmaneuvered by the agile and innovative.   

Better Together  

I have spoken and written about the necessity of collaboration among customers and vendors, even if they compete. There are so many challenges we face as an industry and when we share best practices and work together, we can overcome significant challenges.  

Agilence helps customers with Total Retail Loss – everything from internal and external theft, organized retail crime, inventory distortion, and loss from underperforming promotions or loyalty abuse. We are committed to working with the best interests of our customers. We integrate video data, RFID, alarm and any kind of data to provide actionable insights. If working with our competitors means preferred outcomes for our customer, we will gladly do it and we encourage it. If we need to make product and technological enhancements to integrate with other systems via APIs or other means, we’ll invest. We know once you have technology in place, that is only part of the equation. You also have processes and policies that are expensive to change. So, if we can work within your operational procedures, we can deliver value faster and everyone wins.  

I challenge everyone to embrace this Better Together approach. The result will be that all of us do better, together.