By @SiliconANGLE
Publication Date: 2026-01-21 17:45:00
As one would expect, artificial intelligence was a big theme at last week’s National Retail Federation’s annual event in New York City, as it was last year, but there was one subtle difference.
The 2025 edition was focused more on AI education, whereas I felt this year’s NRF focused more on use cases. In fact, one of the speakers I saw said something to the effect that NRF is no longer a technology show but rather a business outcomes event.
Concurrent with the event, Nvidia Corp. released its latest trends report, State of AI in Retail and Consumer Packaged Goods, which highlights how far retailers and consumer packaged goods companies have come in implementing AI. Nvidia surveyed global industry leaders and found that 58% of companies are “actively deploying” AI solutions. This marks a 16-point increase (42%) from the previous year, pointing to a growing level of maturity.
In retail, AI is moving from vision to reality
This indicates retail and CPG companies are starting to move past experimenting with AI and into more practical use cases. Tools that were once limited to pilots are now showing up in regular operations.
Overall, 91% of the retail industry is engaged with AI either by actively using it or assessing it. AI has contributed to revenue growth, according to 89% of the industry leaders surveyed by Nvidia. Most (95%) said AI has helped reduce annual costs. Ninety-two percent of executives plan to increase their AI budgets in the next year.
