FT Live Future of Retail Summit review: B&Q, Sweaty Betty, The Works bosses debate volatility, crime and AI
“We know we’re going to get inflation so got to be atop of costs,” said Graham Bell, CEO at B&Q at the FT Live 2026 Future of Retail event in the City of London yesterday, when debating trade and tariff volatility, a renewed cost-of-living crisis, shrinkage and AI with fellow CEOs from Sweaty Betty and The Works.
AI is a way to keep on top of costs, as well as being an IT and data cleansing expense, and another element in the omnichannel landscape in its emerging agentic AI guise. This was addressed in a separate panel at the event.
“AI can remove the gruntwork from design and speed up creativity,” said Melissa Mullen, CEO at Sweaty Betty, amid a discussion about how the technology will impact operations and future commerce, alongside other crucial drivers impacting the industry presently, such as distressed supply chains, theft and so on.
“AI is everywhere,” added Mullen, while discussing its impact on pricing, data, inventory, and email tag lines. However, as B&Q’s Bell countered: “AI has been around for a long time (in its non-agentic guise). It’s used for forecasting and on multiple end uses. If you’re doing Far Eastern sourcing and shipping, for example, it can aid faster, cheaper shipping and routing.”
Bell was also keen to stress that the volatility in supply chains and the cost-of-living pressures evident in retailing now, are not new either. “Since the Covid pandemic volatility is the new norm. Six years ago you might have had seasonal plans but we’re much more dynamic and agile in our supply chains now,” he said.
This was just as well during the summer 2026 heatwave in the UK, where B&Q’s DIY stores would’ve experienced huge demand for BBQ and garden goods for instance, but less so on other lines. Bell also candidly admitted that if you’re seeking to maintain margin as a retailer: “Your first port of call is suppliers. There is always value to be found, especially as we know we’re going to get inflation. Therefore, if timber is up, where else can I find value?”
Generative engine optimisation new tool in the omnichannel space
GEO in the coming era of agentic AI was also touched on during FT Live 2026 Future of Retail. Bell shared that B&Q “has entered into a big contract with Google”, with the aim of refining its data and discoverability by AI agents to enhance its searchability, as the former SEO era will imminently be eclipsed.
But this doesn’t mean physical stores, where advice and experiences can be given, will disappear, or other digital channels. The omnichannel approach still prevails. Instead, the agentic AI era will join retailers’ offerings just as their online and social commerce offerings have in the past. It is just that the practice of structuring and tailoring online content so that AI large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity, can find and recommend your brand in their generated responses will bed evident, thereby giving retailers greater sales potential.
“We did 1,400 events in-store last year,” said Sweaty Betty’s Mullen, as she extolled physical retail’s branding and virtues, such as allowing people to try clothes on and providing a cheaper returns option for the online channel, alongside Click and Collect - not just delivery fulfilment options - in an increasingly omnichannel world.
“Consumers that shop across our multi channels are five times more valuable,” added Mullen. “It’s about getting them to engage, download the app and so forth. When intelligence becomes the commodity (in an AI era) the human element and customer experience becomes even more important.”
Physical retail has a future but must curb crime
One downside to physical retail is old fashioned shoplifting and staff intimidation, although as B&Q’s Bell pointed out M&S suffered due to a cyber attack last year. “You need to train staff against phishing and online threats,” he said. “But we’ve also seen people try to physically impersonate our engineers to gain access to stores and systems, so all round protection is needed.”
Bell also cited the Project Pegasus Taskforce between the UK police and the British Retail Consortium (BRC) as evidence that a fightback against rising crime levels is underway. This targets the organised crime gangs that are often behind the rising physical shoplifting figures seen in the UK in recent years.
Fellow panellist, Gavin Peck, CEO at The Works, bemoaned the “unfair tax on physical stores” in UK business rates. Sites on traditional high streets typically suffer much higher rates in comparison to out-of-town warehouses serving e-commerce players. Whether this issue will be addressed in the imminent UK budget was much debated at the FT Live event, alongside any potential help on national insurance pension contributions, the minimum wage, training programmes, and so forth.
Getting the proposition right for you is what matters
The entry of Primark into a home delivery and online market that it previously cooled on was much debated as part of wider discussions about omnichannel among panellists. For The Works’ Peck, it is something he is monitoring with interest having recently overseen his company’s exit from that market. “Our typical £1.50 margins make it difficult online,” he said.
Indeed, The Works has closed its website to transactions and its loyalty programme as it pivots back to its physical in-store 500+ storestrengths. “It was less than 10% of sales, loss making and we had two years of Christmas technical problems, so we closed it. It was the biggest thing we could do to respond to the present volatility, cost-of-living pressures and so on. We’ve still seen sales go up 7% year-on-year and our control has been enhanced.”
“We’ve invested the money in pricing instead,” said Peck, although he did admit The Works may return to the digital world later when it is more on top of its data and thus in a stronger position.
