Retail Media Unboxed

As AI agents begin playing a bigger role in how consumers discover, compare, and ultimately choose products, retail marketers face a fundamental shift: the customer may no longer be the only audience they need to win. In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, Laura Sammartino, SVP of Horizon Futures – Future of Consumer and Culture, explores why trust could prove more important than technology in determining the future of agentic commerce. She joins us to discuss the “control paradox” shaping consumer adoption, why brands must become discoverable to algorithms without sacrificing emotional connection with people, and how AI could reshape everything from product discovery and brand loyalty to measurement and post-purchase marketing. Laura also explains the emerging “automation hangover,” why conversion alone may no longer tell marketers enough, and how brands could take on very different roles as optimizers, curators, and guarantors depending on what consumers are buying.

Agentic commerce may be one of the industry’s favorite new buzzwords, but beneath the hype is a much more practical transformation already taking place across retail media and e-commerce. In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, Ross Caveille, Co-Founder at Acorn-i, joins us to explore what brands can genuinely accomplish with AI agents today, from automating reporting and identifying anomalies to forecasting demand and connecting signals across retail media, DTC and social commerce. Ross explains why the most valuable applications are often the least glamorous, why proprietary data will become an increasingly important competitive advantage and why brands should resist trying to agentify their entire organizations at once. The conversation also explores what businesses need to have in place before deploying agents at scale, including clean data, reliable infrastructure, interoperability, governance and clearly defined autonomy thresholds. Most importantly, Ross argues that the goal should not be replacing commerce teams, but removing repetitive operational work so people can spend more time on strategy, customer understanding and the decisions where human judgment still matters.

AI agents are supposed to transform commerce, autonomously researching products, comparing prices and eventually making purchases on our behalf, but the reality of how people actually shop suggests a considerably more complicated future.   In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, we sit down with Justin Sparks, GM of Retail and Commerce Media at Teads, to separate the practical applications of AI in commerce from the hype. Sparks argues that the immediate opportunity isn't autonomous shopping at all, but AI-assisted research, particularly for expensive or complicated purchases where consumers genuinely benefit from having information synthesized for them.    We explore why the infrastructure for true agent-to-agent commerce still has a long way to go, how LLMs could reshape product discovery before shoppers ever reach a retailer, and why publishers, reviews, Reddit, YouTube and the open web could become even more important as sources of trusted information. We also discuss what this means for retail media networks whose lucrative sponsored-search businesses depend on shoppers actually searching retailer websites, and why the arrival of conversational commerce could force retailers to rethink both monetization and the customer experience.    Most importantly, Sparks challenges the idea that AI will make brands less important by turning shopping into a purely rational exercise. If AI recommendations are ultimately informed by reputation, preference, loyalty, trusted editorial coverage and the information surrounding a brand across the web, brand building may become more consequential in an agentic world, not less.  5 Key Takeaways 1. Agentic research is arriving much faster than agentic purchasing. The most compelling current use case for AI isn't handing over the credit card and allowing an agent to shop autonomously, but helping consumers navigate complicated, high-consideration purchases such as televisions, electronics or travel. For habitual purchases and everyday CPG products, autonomous agents may actually introduce more complexity than they remove.  2. The open web could become more important, not less. LLMs need reliable information to formulate useful recommendations, which means publishers, editorial reviews, consumer reviews, YouTube, Reddit and other sources can influence what products ultimately enter an AI-generated consideration set. Brands therefore need to think about their visibility across the information ecosystem rather than focusing exclusively on what happens at the retailer.  3. GEO could become a new battleground for challenger brands. Smaller brands have an opportunity to establish themselves inside AI-driven product discovery by ensuring accurate and consistent information appears across publishers, reviews and user-generated content. If AI systems increasingly mediate the beginning of product research, earning visibility in the sources those systems rely upon could become as strategically important as conventional search visibility.  4. AI may make brand building more important rather than less. An AI can rationally compare price, availability and specifications, but consumers still bring preferences, loyalty and perceptions of quality into the process. If those preferences become part of the context agents use to make recommendations, strong brand equity becomes a signal that algorithms must account for rather than something algorithms eliminate.  5. Retail media's sponsored-search model could face a fundamental challenge. Retail media networks have built significant businesses around monetizing search-results pages, but AI-driven discovery could mean shoppers arrive at retailers already knowing considerably more about what they want. If that reduces searches and page views inside retailer environments, RMNs will need new ways to monetize conversational interfaces and capture demand without compromising the customer experience.

Retail media has exploded into one of marketing's fastest-growing sectors, but behind the scenes, many retailers are still trying to connect dozens of disconnected systems while advertisers struggle to navigate an increasingly fragmented ecosystem. In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, Drew Cashmore, Chief Strategy Officer at Vantage, explains why retail media has evolved far beyond an advertising channel into a competitive business platform. He discusses why composable architecture is becoming essential, why technology investment—not just media sales—will determine which retailers succeed, how interoperability and standardized APIs could unlock the industry's next phase of growth, and why the industry's obsession with measurement standardization may be distracting from the much bigger opportunity.

Retail media has become one of marketing's most measurable channels, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's measuring what matters. In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, Leah Logan, VP of Retail Media Transformation at Inmar Intelligence, explains why traditional attribution models fail to capture much of today's consumer journey, particularly as creators become a larger influence on discovery and purchase decisions. She discusses why brands need to think beyond last-click attribution, why creator content should be treated as an asset rather than simply another media buy, and how retail media networks can compete for larger brand budgets by focusing on consumer behavior instead of isolated tactics. Leah also shares why planning, creative strategy, and business outcomes—not just targeting and measurement—will define the next generation of successful retail media networks.

Retail media has become one of advertising's fastest-growing channels, but most of the industry's attention remains fixed on a handful of giants. In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, we sit down with Jon Lowen, Co-CEO of Surfside, to discuss why the next phase of retail media growth will come from independent retailers, regional chains, and specialty stores that have been largely left behind. We explore why retail media should be viewed as a retailer's operating system rather than simply another advertising product, how first-party data can transform customer experiences beyond advertising, why better measurement is shifting marketers away from media metrics and toward business outcomes, and what needs to happen before thousands of fragmented retail media networks become as easy to buy as search or social.

On today’s episode, we’re joined by Steve Biddle, Chief Commercial Officer at Zitcha. With a career spanning Walmart, Meta, and now one of retail media’s leading orchestration platforms, Steve brings a uniquely deep perspective on how the retail media ecosystem has evolved — and where it still faces major growing pains. In this conversation, we unpack the operational and structural tensions slowing the next phase of retail media growth, including fragmentation across platforms, the disconnect between merchant organizations and retail media teams, and why traditional advertising metrics don’t always reflect real retail outcomes. Steve also shares his thoughts on the future role of AI in simplifying retail media execution, why transparency across networks matters more than ever, and how stronger integration between merchant data and media systems could fundamentally reshape the industry. It’s a thoughtful, candid conversation about where retail media stands today — and what needs to happen next.

In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, we sit down with Intersection CEO Chris Grosso to explore how digital out-of-home (DOOH) is redefining the path to purchase. From LinkNYC kiosks to transit networks across major U.S. cities, Grosso outlines how location, timing, and real-world context are turning everyday environments into high-intent media channels. We dive into the overlooked power of proximity, the role of experiential in a fragmented media landscape, and why marketers may be over-optimizing for short-term performance at the expense of long-term brand growth. Plus, how advancements in foot traffic attribution, mobile data, and AI-driven planning are finally helping DOOH prove its impact alongside retail media networks.

Retail media networks are booming—but they’re also hitting real constraints around scale, signal loss, and measurement. In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, we sit down with Colin Grieves, Managing Director at Experian Marketing Services UK and Ireland, to unpack what’s actually changing beneath the surface of retail media in 2026. We explore why first-party data alone is no longer enough, how privacy-safe third-party insight helps resolve the precision-vs-scale trade-off, and why interoperability and collaboration are becoming essential for retailers, agencies, and brands alike. The conversation also dives into shifting consumer behavior, value-seeking mindsets, and the critical role high-quality data will play as AI becomes embedded across media buying, creative, and measurement.

In this episode of Retail Media Unboxed, host we sit down with Jacob King, Senior Vice President of Amex Offers & Digital Media at American Express, for an inside look at how Amex Ads is redefining the commerce media landscape. Building on more than a decade of success with Amex Offers—which drove over $15 billion in global spend last year alone—American Express is now extending its relevance, personalization, and value into a full-fledged media offering.   Jacob explains how Amex Ads leverages the company’s closed-loop network, rich first-party transaction data, and premium digital platforms like AmexTravel.com and Resy to help brands connect with 34 million high-spending U.S. card members in contextual, high-intent moments. He shares early results from pilots with partners like Marriott and Tumi—results that far exceeded benchmarks thanks to precise targeting, full-funnel measurement, and both online and offline spend attribution.