RTS 2026 conference review: shift to AI aids efficiency and CX, say New Look, Aroma Zone, Fortnum & Mason

“Artificial intelligence helps us better understand reviews left about our brand,” said Amine Mekouar, Vice President of Data & AI, Aroma Zone, at Retail Technology Show 2026 in London last week.

Speaking in a conference session panel with Fortnum & Mason and New Look, Mekouar, representing a French company with five million customers that is coming to the UK, said he is encouraged by AI’s ability to ingest and use feedback data. It can be deployed to improve sentiment understanding and therefore customer experiences and ultimately their business efficiency and performance overall.  

Iain Robertson, Chief Operating & Innovation Officer, Fortnum & Mason, agreed, commenting that: “Understanding how agentic AI agents view our brand is key.”

“AI is moving at such speed now you need partner help as well,” added Robertson. “We’ve used Rio to help us launch six AI pilots in the last three months. One is a real needle mover,” he said, without giving specific details despite questioning from RTIH.    

Robertson also shared with the RTS 2026 audience that the high end Fortnum & Mason department store headquartered in Piccadilly since 1707, has doubled its business in the last five years by embracing technology. “It’s good for operations as well,” he said, while explaining how AI specifically has helped staff know and share information about its 20,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) in the hunt to find products and put them in front of consumers.  

Dan Chasle, Chief Data Officer at New Look, entered the chat by commenting on how: “AI is transforming our internal processes from product inception through to the check out.” This is thanks for its number crunching capabilities.

But AI tools have to be fed clean data and tasked appropriately to get the best out of it. Chasle shared a number of examples from his retailer.  “As an example, we’ve an AI fit automation app that helps populate the template (more efficiently) for garment types. This is shared with our manufacturers.”  

Operational and customer applications of AI

Operational end uses of AI in the search for efficiency are now commonplace in the retail sector, but what is new is AI that can be used on customer sentiment and experience to feed marketing campaigns, specific promotions and in making sure your product lines are discoverable online, whether that is on the retailer’s own platform or not. This is vital during the imminent era of agentic AI.   

As the sponsor representative on the conference panel at RTS 2026, Nikki Baird, VP of Strategy & Product at Aptos Retail, said: “We’ve not seen the full benefits of AI yet, not even half of it! It’s an exciting technology journey that has only just begun.”    

However, it is important to ensure that the people, process and technology are all properly aligned in order to get the best out of any applications - otherwise, it’ll just be a case of garbage in, garbage out.

“The key thing is to always have humans supervising AI,” said Mekouar. “AI won’t help you solve all problems end-to-end.” But it is a powerful tool and as the panel demonstrated at RTS 2026 it is increasingly finding more and more real world applications in retail.  

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.