SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Campari Group has successfully gone live with SAP Cloud ERP Private solutions, marking a major milestone in its digital transformation journey.
Run core operations with confidence using ready-to-run enterprise resource planning capabilities in the cloud
Learn how

Milan, Italy-based Campari Group is a global leader in the spirits industry. With a portfolio of more than 50 premium brands, including Aperol, Campari, Espolòn, Wild Turkey, Courvoisier and Grand Marnier, the company markets its products in more than 190 countries and operates 24 production sites worldwide.

“We’ve embarked on the RISE with SAP journey to keep pace with innovations offered by SAP Cloud ERP Private and embedded AI capabilities,” said José Silva, group head of IT at Campari Group. “Today, we can reshape processes in line with business evolution, improve planning and make our supply chain more efficient—ensuring continuous product distribution worldwide. Moving to a centralized process model enables us to improve productivity and reduce TCO consistently.”

The Campari Group go-live establishes an end-to-end digital architecture built on a core transformation backbone, embedded AI, data unification and IT landscape governance:

At its foundation, Campari Group unifies finance, supply chain, marketing and human resources on the SAP Analytics Cloud, SAP Integrated Business Planning and SAP Datasphere solutions as well as SAP Business Technology Platform. This creates an integrated backbone for planning, analytics and application development.
Embedded AI across SAP solutions is enhancing both operations and employee experience. In SAP SuccessFactors solutions, employees use the Joule solution and embedded AI to set and track goals, while SAP Concur solutions automate expense matching. AI-assisted capabilities are streamlining order and payment posting, improving decision-making and optimizing operational costs.
Campari Group is also implementing the SAP Business Data Cloud solution to unify SAP and third-party software data, delivering timely, contextual insights while preserving core business logic.
Finally, Campari Group also adopted SAP LeanIX solutions to map interdependencies between applications, processes and business owners, enabling more agile, informed decision-making.

“Campari is one of our best references in the food and beverage sector and is an excellent example of how SAP solutions can transform organizational and production processes,” said Carla Masperi, managing director, SAP Italy. “By combining cloud ERP with AI and data-driven planning, Campari is setting a new standard for digital transformation in the consumer products industry.”

Amazon wants to make it easier for consumers to discover adoptable dogs and cats based on their lifestyle and preferences.

Partnering with pet product brand PetArmor and national animal welfare organization Best Friends Animal Society, Amazon has launched its first-ever pet adoption solution. The tool processes natural language queries like, "I need a low-energy dog good for apartments," and returns personalized recommendations from Best Friends centers nationwide.

The adoption hub uses natural language processing to interpret text-based queries before searching Best Friends' database of adoptable pets at its centers in Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Northwest Arkansas, Salt Lake City, and the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, using predefined filters.

When users submit prompts describing their ideal pet, the AI analyzes factors including temperament, energy level, living situation compatibility, and household composition, and returns matches with profiles from Best Friends, including photos and direct navigation to the organization’s website to complete adoption applications.

In addition, Amazon Ads created personalized, animated videos showing how featured pets could thrive in home environments. Based on pet profiles from Best Friends, the AI-generated content transforms the static profiles into video narratives designed to help potential adopters visualize life with that pet.

As part of this initiative, in February 2026 Amazon constructed a custom dog park and “catio” at Glen Rose Animal Control in Texas.

"The best part of working on this was aligning everything around one question: 'how do we help more of our country’s adoptable pets in shelters find the healthy, happy homes they deserve?'" said Lauren Anderson, U.S. head of Amazon Ads Brand Innovation Lab. "That North Star drove every decision – the AI matching tool, the generative videos, the shelter spaces. It's a true full-funnel campaign on a worthy mission."

Amazon continues expanding its planned investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure in Mississippi.

The online giant announced its total statewide planned investment in Mississippi data centers that will support its AI operations has reached $25 billion, with intent to create 2,000 jobs across all Amazon data center operations in the state.

In November 2025, Amazon said it would invest at least $3 billion in Warren County, Miss., to build a new data center to support AI and cloud computing technologies. This commitment followed Amazon's 2024 $10 billion investment to build two data center complexes in Madison County, Miss.

[READ MORE: Amazon investing $10 billion in Mississippi data centers]

Now, Amazon's planned data center expansion in Mississippi includes an additional $11 billion investment in Madison County and a $1 billion investment in Hinds County, where the company is transforming the former Delphi manufacturing plant into a data center facility.

“Amazon’s $25 billion investment in Mississippi to build data centers will create 2,000 high-skilled jobs and bring new energy generation to the grid," said David Zapolsky, Amazon's chief global affairs and legal officer. "We’re covering all our energy expenses, increasing our investment in Madison County, expanding into Warren County, and transforming a former manufacturing plant in Hinds County—producing reliable infrastructure that will serve Mississippi for generations.”

In addition, Amazon says it has invested more than $5.8 billion in operations infrastructure and compensation to Mississippi employees across fulfillment, logistics, delivery, and retail operations, supporting more than 7,000 full- and part-time employees there.

The $25 billion planned investment will also directly enables Entergy Mississippi's Superpower Mississippi initiative—a commitment to modernize the state’s energy grid with $300 million in improvements at no cost to existing ratepayers.

Amazon has also invested in five renewable energy projects that are enabling 616 megawatts of new carbon-free energy in Mississippi through solar and wind farms across the state—enough to power 152,000 U.S. homes. These projects include Delta Wind, the state’s first utility-scale wind farm.

Birch Coffee, one of New York City’s most beloved independent coffee brands, has opened its twelfth location powered by Square’s unified commerce platform. Built on a hospitality-first ethos and a commitment to driving neighborhood connection, Birch Coffee is steadily scaling by leveraging Square to simplify operations, empower frontline teams, and deliver a consistent customer experience at every location.

Birch Coffee’s origin story is one of humility and hustle. Founded in 2009 by two bartenders new to the industry, the brand has grown from a neighborhood newcomer into a name recognized city-wide for its warmth, craft, and community. Believing that every cup of coffee has its own story and soul, the founders early on established relationships with the South American farmers behind their beans, with a commitment to discovering the best processing methods and flavor profiles. As they embarked on ambitious expansion, the team needed technology that would evolve alongside them, upholding their high product standards without adding operational complexity.

“We really immersed ourselves in the industry, learning as much as we could and becoming more confident in our point of view,” said Birch Coffee co-founder, Jeremy Lyman. “What started as a small, uncertain venture has grown into a more established and intentional brand. We’ve become much clearer about who we are and how we operate, and we need systems that support that as we grow.”

Their intentionality has paid off. In 2025, Birch Coffee saw 16% year-over-year growth – a testament to the brand’s local reputation, performance, and the commerce foundation supporting it. Before Square, Birch Coffee ran on a legacy point-of-sale (POS) system that wasn’t keeping up with rapidly advancing customer expectations. When word spread that local coffee giants were making the switch to Square, the Birch Coffee founders took notice.

“It’s easy to use, easy to train on, and easy to scale with,” continued Lyman. “Being able to run so much of the business through one ecosystem while still integrating with best-in-class partners is a big advantage. The overall simplicity and flexibility would be hard to replace.”

Birch Coffee’s portfolio runs on Square, combining hardware, software, and integrations that support frontline operations and back-office management. The business uses Square Register and Square for Restaurants to power its service operations, with functionality like Square email marketing and gift cards driving community connection and repeat visits from loyal regulars.

As part of their eCommerce offering, Square powers the brand’s thriving coffee subscription service. The business also leverages a custom-built API alongside an integration with 7shifts for workforce scheduling, demonstrating the flexibility of Square’s open platform to tailor-meet a brand’s needs.

Retailer achieves over 89% forecast accuracy and more than 98% on-shelf availability following supply chain transformation

Biyoute Trading Co., Ltd. (Biyoute), a leading supermarket chain in Northeast China, has improved forecast accuracy and product availability after implementing supply chain planning capabilities from RELEX Solutions. The system went live at the end of December 2025, ahead of the Chinese New Year peak, and was immediately put into use across approximately 115 stores, seven distribution centers, and 20,000 SKUs.

Biyoute has focused on driving efficiency and cost leadership as it scales its operations. As consumer demand becomes more variable and promotional cycles more complex, the company needed to move away from manual planning toward a more consistent and data-driven approach. Its existing processes made it difficult to balance availability, inventory levels, and labor demands during peak periods such as the Spring Festival.

To address these challenges, Biyoute selected RELEX and Beijing Times Distribution Consulting (TDCC) to implement an integrated supply chain planning system. The solution includes machine learning-based demand forecasting, fresh product management, and intraday multi-delivery scheduling. With a unified view of demand and supply, Biyoute can better coordinate resources, improve replenishment decisions, and respond more effectively to fluctuations in demand.

Since go-live, Biyoute has achieved weekly forecast accuracy of 89% at the regional level, with grocery forecasts exceeding 92%. These improvements have helped reduce both stockouts and excess inventory while lowering warehousing and capital costs. On-shelf availability across categories has also stabilized at more than 98%.

The system has also changed how teams operate. Warehouse staff reduced daily working hours by approximately four during the pre-holiday peak due to more precise replenishment calculations. In stores, employees have shifted from manual ordering to system-supported decisions, allowing them to focus more on customer service and data quality. Increased use of automated order recommendations has also reduced errors and improved consistency.

“The go-live of the RELEX system has further advanced the digitalization of Biyoute’s supply chain, enabling more scientific proactive planning and precise operations through data empowerment,” said Meng Fanzhong, Chairman of Biyoute. “Since going live, we have achieved multiple optimizations in operational efficiency, cost control, and service quality. This has laid a solid foundation for the company’s sustainable high-quality development and strengthened our confidence in the future.”

“RELEX brings global customer success experience and outstanding AI forecasting technology, while TDCC has cultivated deep insights into China’s retail market for many years,” said Li Tao, Chairman of TDCC. “This strong alliance enabled Biyoute to leap from manual experience to data-driven operations, allowing the system to go live ahead of schedule and withstand the real-world test of the Spring Festival peak.”

“At RELEX, we uphold a strong sense of responsibility to our customers and treat their success as our own,” said Elaine Jiang, General Manager at RELEX Solutions China. “The results achieved with Biyoute Mart show how collaborative, intelligent supply chains can improve performance at scale, and we look forward to supporting their next phase of growth.”

Bikky, the customer data platform built exclusively for multi-unit restaurants, announced its partnership with fast-casual Mexican fusion brand Bubbakoo’s Burritos. Known for its highly customizable menu and non-traditional flavors, Bubbakoo’s is working with Bikky to drive personalized, data-driven growth.

Founded in 2008 in Mount Pleasant, New Jersey, Bubbakoo’s gives every guest the ability to create something completely unique—every time they visit. Its broad, choice-driven menu quickly gained popularity, and the brand now has more than 140 locations across 16 states.

With each new location, it became more challenging to maintain a unified view of guest behavior and identify meaningful trends. “Before Bikky, it was hard for us to see the big picture. Our data was very fragmented,” said Alex Jano, VP of Marketing. To support its next phase of growth, Bubbakoo’s brought on Bikky to centralize its data, unlock deeper insights, and power a more tailored guest experience.

Bubbakoo’s first area of focus was improving their onboarding journey—a new initiative made possible by Bikky’s segmentation tool. Their onboarding had been one-size-fits-all, with limited visibility into what drove repeat visits. With Bikky, the team can follow guests beyond their first visit, identifying where engagement drops off and where there’s opportunity to improve.

“Having data that tells us who each customer is and being able to capitalize on that is probably our biggest aha at the moment,” said Jano. Bubbakoo’s is now testing different communications to understand what resonates with specific segments and creating more tailored, relevant onboarding.

Bikky’s segmentation tool is proving valuable for menu expansion as well. On April 13th, the brand is launching a new plant-based chorizo. While not every guest will be interested, Bubbakoo’s can now target those actively seeking plant-based options. “We know this launch will be really exciting for some of our guests and we can use Bikky to give them a special, personalized offer rather than sending the same message to everyone,” said Jano.

Beyond marketing, Bikky’s data is fueling more informed menu analysis. With a clear view of guest behavior across every point of sale, the brand is testing menu layouts to determine what performs best in-store versus online. This ensures guests can easily navigate Bubbakoo’s expansive and highly customizable menu.

The team is also empowering franchisees with insights beyond sales and traffic. By bringing location-specific data into reviews and planning, operators are identifying trends and opportunities they could not previously see. “We’re better supporting our franchisees with deeper insights into their business,” said Jano. “It not only helps identify local opportunities but also strengthens alignment and collaboration with our franchise partners.”

“As our brand continues to grow and level up, having the right data behind our decisions is essential,” said Chris Ives, CEO of Bubbakoo’s Burritos. “Bikky gives us a clearer view of our guests and allows us to turn insights into smarter marketing, stronger franchisee support, and better experiences across the system.”

Looking ahead, Bubbakoo’s is focused on bringing in new franchisees, building awareness in new markets, optimizing its menu and LTO strategy, and strengthening its tech stack to support long-term scale. Bikky will play an essential role in that growth. “With Bikky, we can combine customer feedback with detailed insights into guest behavior. We finally have the whole picture.”

“In their short time on Bikky, Bubbakoo’s has incorporated guest data into every part of their business — marketing, menu decisions, operational reviews, and franchisee support.” says Abhinav Kapur, Co-Founder and CEO of Bikky. “They understand that guest data isn’t just a tool, but the centerpiece of their growth strategy. We’re proud to support this innovative, fast-growing brand as they bring craveable, customizable Mexican fusion to the masses.”

Today’s fastest-growing, most innovative restaurants use Bikky to understand how their decisions impact key metrics like frequency and traffic. Bubbakoo’s Burritos joins a growing roster of brands, including Bojangles, Playa Bowls, and Dave’s Hot Chicken, that rely on Bikky’s guest data and analytics platform.

The partnership aims to leverage online data and offline retail experience to optimize home furnishings delivery and product selection.

A carefully arranged composition of premium home furnishing materials and objects, such as a plush mattress, a sleek side table, and a decorative vase, all set against a clean, monochromatic background with sharp, dramatic lighting to represent the abstract concepts of supply chain optimization, data-driven merchandising, and omnichannel retail strategy.A refined, data-driven approach to home furnishings aims to deliver a more seamless and cost-effective omnichannel experience for consumers.

City Furniture, a Florida-based home furnishings retailer, recently visited the headquarters of GARVEE, a California-based home improvement company. The two companies discussed a potential collaboration to combine City Furniture's showroom-based retail model and delivery capabilities with GARVEE's data-driven merchandising and demand forecasting expertise. The goal is to develop an integrated online-to-offline operating model that delivers more cost-effective solutions for consumers in the U.S. and Canada.
Why it matters

This potential partnership highlights the growing importance of omnichannel strategies in the home furnishings industry, as retailers look to leverage both online and offline channels to better serve evolving consumer preferences. By blending City Furniture's physical retail presence and logistics with GARVEE's digital capabilities, the collaboration could result in more efficient product selection, inventory management, and last-mile delivery for customers.
The details

The discussions focused on several key areas, including leveraging mattresses as a strategic starting point, understanding shifting consumer demand, and strengthening digital operations and supply chain efficiency. City Furniture plans to utilize its supplier network and showroom-based model, supported by delivery vehicles and installers, to enhance the last-mile experience. GARVEE will contribute its data-driven merchandising and forecasting capabilities to optimize inventory planning and product selection for online sales. Together, the partners aim to develop an integrated online-to-offline model that combines online traffic, offline experience, and local fulfillment.

City Furniture

A premier Florida-based retailer dedicated to transforming home living through beautiful furnishings offered at an exceptional value. The company has evolved from its origins as Waterbed City in the 1970s to become a leading destination for furniture and home accents, with a robust presence across Florida and an expansive e-commerce platform.
GARVEE

A home improvement company headquartered in Ontario, California, that operates as a direct-to-consumer platform specializing in a wide array of products for home, lifestyle, and commercial use across the United States and Canada. The company is recognized for its responsive customer support and end-to-end service approach.
Keith Koenig

The Chairman of City Furniture.
Shaun Feraco

The Senior Vice President of Operations at City Furniture.
Dave Clevenger

The Senior Vice President of Operations at City Furniture.
Got photos? Submit your photos here. ›
What they’re saying

“By combining our global supply chain and digital capabilities with City Furniture's retail and fulfillment strengths, we see a clear opportunity to build a more efficient, customer-focused model.”

— GARVEE Representative

“We were impressed by GARVEE's data-driven operations and see strong potential to enhance value and operational efficiency to the U.S. market together.”

— City Furniture Leadership
What’s next

The two companies plan to further explore the potential partnership, focusing on integrating their respective strengths in supply chain, data analytics, and omnichannel retail to deliver a more seamless and cost-effective experience for customers in the U.S. and Canada.
The takeaway

This potential collaboration between City Furniture and GARVEE highlights the growing importance of blending online and offline capabilities in the home furnishings industry. By leveraging each other's strengths, the companies aim to create a more efficient and customer-centric omnichannel model that can better serve evolving consumer preferences and market conditions.

By delivering seamless, personalized AI-native experience on ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, David's redefines how millions of consumers will discover and shop online

KING OF PRUSSIA, PA / ACCESS Newswire / April 13, 2026 / David's Bridal, Inc. ("David's") is now live on Shopify's Agentic Storefronts across ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot, further cementing its reputation as the leading AI-powered marketplace, media network, and planning ecosystem for life's most meaningful celebrations. The move unlocks a new, high-growth commerce channel where products are discovered, recommended, and purchased through AI conversations. David's is now among the first merchants globally to activate fully integrated, end-to-end commerce within generative AI platforms, and marks a major step forward in its "Aisle to Algorithm" strategy to place the company at the forefront of AI-driven commerce.

"There is a structural shift in how consumers discover and buy, and David's is helping to lead the way," said Kelly Cook, CEO of David's. "Consumers are moving from traditional search to AI-driven discovery at an extraordinary pace, and increasingly expect to complete their purchase in that same moment. By bringing our assortment directly into these ecosystems, we're ensuring David's is a driving force behind the next era of retail."

According to recent reports, more than 70% of consumers say they are willing to complete purchases through AI chat environments, and AI-powered shopping experiences are delivering conversion rates up to 23% higher than traditional e-commerce. By integrating within these platforms, David's Bridal is meeting consumer demand by narrowing the gap between inspiration and transaction. Now, when initiating an AI chat about wedding gowns, bridesmaids dresses, prom dress, graduation looks, wedding guest dresses, date night looks, gifts and more, David's products will appear with rich product cards that include imagery, pricing, customer ratings averaging 4.9 stars, and detailed style descriptions - all the information a consumer needs to make a confident, informed purchase.

Within ChatGPT, the platform dynamically categorizes David's Bridal's assortment by silhouette, such as Classic Ball Gowns and Modern & Minimal styles, while positioning the brand as one of the easiest places to shop, with strong price coverage ranging from under $200 to $2,000+. On Microsoft Copilot, shoppers can browse collections, view real-time size and color availability, explore inclusive sizing from 0-30W, and complete purchases through embedded buy buttons and direct checkout.

Every transaction is powered by David's Bridal's existing Shopify infrastructure, ensuring that all business-critical customizations remain intact. David's Bridal remains the merchant of record across every touchpoint: fulfilling orders, owning the customer relationship, and capturing valuable first-party data. The integration operates without incremental listing or transaction fees beyond standard processing rates, and provides full attribution. This allows David's to track which AI platforms drive each sale and see how consumers are searching and shopping, all of which will deliver insights to inform how David's can continue to grow and optimize within AI environments.

The launch comes at a moment of significant behavioral and technological shift, as conversational AI rapidly becomes the new front door to commerce. During peak retail periods, AI-driven tools have already influenced $14.2 billion in global online sales and driven more than 800% growth in retail traffic, according to Adobe Analytics reporting via Reuters. At the same time, more than 80% of consumers report that AI delivers more personalized and enjoyable shopping experiences, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Together, these behavioral shifts signal a fundamental transformation in how consumers discover, evaluate, and purchase products.

"What makes this moment so powerful is the convergence of infrastructure, data, and AI. By leveraging Shopify's architecture, we're able to extend our entire commerce engine directly into AI environments without compromise, preserving checkout, attribution, and customer ownership," added Scott Saeger, Chief Technology Officer of David's Bridal. "The next phase of retail competition will be won at the data layer; brands that structure, enrich, and optimize their product data most effectively for AI will be the ones that surface first and convert fastest. We're proud that David's Bridal is one of those brands."

David's Bridal is focused on further scaling through deep catalog optimization, as AI agents prioritize products based on the completeness and precision of structured data. The company has initiated a comprehensive audit to strengthen key attributes, such as silhouette, neckline, fabric, sleeve length, train length, and size range, that directly influence ranking and visibility across AI-driven shopping experiences. In parallel, David's Bridal is evaluating advanced optimization tools within Shopify's ecosystem to automate product data scoring and further enhance readiness for large language models.

"This is a defining moment, not just for David's Bridal, but for the future of retail," Cook added. "The next generation of commerce won't happen on websites alone. It will happen wherever consumers are asking questions, seeking inspiration, and making decisions in real time... and, we're building the foundation to win."

###

About David's Bridal

David's Bridal exists for magical moments. With over 75 years of experience, love stories and innovation, David's is transforming from a legacy bridal retailer into a 360° AI-powered technology and media powerhouse, dual-sided marketplace platform, and wholesale leader thanks to its "Aisle to Algorithm" strategy - reshaping how people plan, shop, and celebrate for weddings and life's special moments.

Recently named Exclusive Global Producer and Retailer for Vera Wang Bride, the company is also scaling its curated boutique experience Diamonds & Pearls by David's, and introducing a powerful wholesale platform serving boutiques and national retailers with brands from such as Oleg Cassini, Viola Chan Couture, Marchesa and more, and actively growing its footprint through store- in‑store partnerships, including an international presence inside Mexico's Liverpool, connecting global audiences to its products, services, and expertise.

At the center of this evolution is Pearl by David's, the integrated digital platform that unifies Pearl Planner, Pearl Marketplace (featuring partners such as Generation Tux, Personalization Mall, MyRegistry, Bebe Third Love & dozens more),and Pearl Media Network, connecting AI‑powered planning, inspiration, vendor discovery, commerce, and media engagement across digital, social, podcast, streaming, video, and in‑store channels.

Love Stories by David's powers the leading digital-first wedding media brand, reaching over 20 million viewers monthly with podcasts, streaming TV, Snap Discover, YouTube, TikTok, and a library of 30,000+ real wedding videos, fueling a marketplace of 60,000+ wedding professionals. As part of its broader content strategy, David's premiered Breaking Bridal - Real Love Stories. Zero Rules. Watch now on YouTube, and coming soon to major streaming platforms.

With more than 180 stores across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, David's Bridal delivers a seamless omnichannel experience while supporting B2B partners and consumers through every milestone-from weddings to Quinceañeras, proms, graduations, and beyond. To learn more: visit DavidsBridal.com, sign up for Pearl Planner, and connect on all social media platforms @DavidsBridal, @pearlbyDavids and @diamondsandpearlsbyDavids.

Dollar General plans to roll out an artificial intelligence-equipped in-store audio network that will integrate with its retail media network.

Partnering with audio retail media platform Qsic, Dollar General will deploy an AI-enabled in-store audio network across approximately 6,000 stores in 48 states during the second quarter of 2026. This rollout will double the retailer’s existing in-store audio presence to 12,000 locations.

As a result, Dollar General intends to deliver more relevant, localized and measurable audio content to customers while providing brand partners participating in its DG Media Network retail media network with accountable, data-driven advertising. Leveraging the Qsic platform, Dollar General plans to integrate POS data, curated music and AI-generated audio ads to deliver timely, targeted messaging.

“At DG Media Network, we’re constantly looking for innovative ways to help brands meaningfully connect with our customers, and by introducing an AI-powered in-store audio network, we’re unlocking an entirely new layer of relevancy and accountability in the shopping experience,” said Austin Leonard, VP and GM of DG Media Network. “This platform allows us to deliver localized, real-time messaging at scale across the thousands of communities we serve – especially in underserved and often overlooked rural areas.”

Initially launched in 2018, the Dollar General Media Network offers participating CPG advertising partners access to real-time data, to help them serve its customer base.

“We’re thrilled to partner with Dollar General as they enhance their store experience and expand their in-store retail media capabilities,” said Matt Elsley, co-founder and CEO of Qsic. “Dollar General’s unparalleled store base and deep reach into communities across the country make it an incredibly powerful opportunity for brands. With retail seeing approximately 85% of sales occurring in-store, physical locations remain the most valuable media channel.”

Dollar General partners to expand DMGN functionality

Other collaborations Dollar General has entered to enhance the value of DG Media Network include partnering with Fetch, a rewards app that provides consumers with “Fetch points” when they submit receipts from partner brands and retailers.

In addition, the retailer utilizes the API-enabled Kevel Retail Media Cloud platform to intends to develop tailored ad products that align with its brand and customer experience, maintain full control of first-party data, and offer participating advertisers advanced measurement and attribution analytics.

The retailer also partners with experiential marketing platform Recess to let advertisers hyper-target the retailer’s customers through community-driven sampling programs. Participating DGMN brands can integrate products into consumers' daily lives before they enter the store and advertisers can execute experiential sampling programs in targeted communities.

In 2024, the discounter integrated with retail media platform provider Criteo to provide DGMN advertisers access to inventory and campaign execution through flexible integrations with Criteo's Commerce Max self-service demand-side platform (DSP).

As of Jan. 30, 2026, Dollar General Corp. operates 20,893 Dollar General, DG Market, DGX and pOpshelf stores across the U.S. and Mi Súper Dollar General stores in Mexico.

DoorDash is winding down its AI-powered restaurant discovery app, Zesty, less than a year after its launch, a move that on the surface may look like a quiet product retreat but in reality reflects a broader shift in how the company is approaching restaurant discovery, reservations, and on-premise dining.

In an email this week to users, DoorDash said that Zesty’s core features, including personalized restaurant recommendations and conversational search, will be integrated into the main DoorDash app. The standalone product is expected to go offline on April 17. The company framed the decision as a transition rather than an ending, noting that the underlying mission of making dining out more intuitive and personalized will continue within its primary platform.

Zesty launched in December 2025 in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area with a focus on helping consumers answer a different question than DoorDash historically addressed. Instead of optimizing what to order, the app was designed to help users decide where to go. It aggregated data from sources such as Google Maps, social media platforms, and DoorDash’s own ecosystem to generate recommendations based on natural language prompts like late-night dining options nearby or restaurants suitable for group brunch. It also included a social layer that allowed users to share photos and experiences, effectively combining elements of discovery, content, and community.

The concept was well aligned with how consumers increasingly approach dining decisions, moving fluidly across search, social media, and peer recommendations before settling on a restaurant. However, as a standalone product, Zesty faced a fundamental challenge. Restaurant discovery is already deeply fragmented, and consumer habits are firmly established across platforms such as Google Maps, Yelp, Instagram, and TikTok. Convincing users to adopt another dedicated app, even one powered by AI, was always going to be difficult.

Integrating Zesty’s capabilities into the core DoorDash experience addresses that issue directly. It places discovery tools in front of a large, existing user base that already engages with the platform at a high frequency, particularly around ordering and transactions. More importantly, it aligns with a broader strategic shift underway at DoorDash that extends well beyond delivery.

The company’s acquisition of SevenRooms last year marked a significant step into on-premise dining, adding reservations, guest relationship management and marketing capabilities to its platform. Since then, DoorDash has moved quickly to expand its reservations footprint, offering access to tables at high-demand restaurants in multiple major markets. In Manhattan alone, more than 200 restaurants were bookable on DoorDash as of late March, many with exclusive inventory or preferred time slots available through the platform.

This expansion places DoorDash into more direct competition with established reservation platforms such as OpenTable and Resy, both of which have built their value propositions around access, diner loyalty, and network scale. At the same time, it positions DoorDash alongside discovery-focused platforms and increasingly influential social channels that shape dining intent long before a reservation is made.

The competitive landscape is becoming more interconnected as a result. Discovery, reservations and transactions are no longer separate categories. They are converging into a single, continuous experience where the platform that captures the earliest signal of intent has a distinct advantage. DoorDash’s existing delivery business provides it with a large base of transaction-level data, while SevenRooms extends its reach into dine-in behavior and guest preferences. Adding AI-driven discovery into that mix allows the company to influence decisions earlier in the funnel and guide users toward actions that remain within its ecosystem.

This is where Zesty’s role becomes clearer. As a standalone app, it may not have achieved the level of adoption needed to justify continued investment. As a feature set embedded within a much larger platform, however, its capabilities become significantly more valuable. Conversational search and personalized recommendations are most effective when they are directly connected to reservations, promotions, and ordering options, rather than existing in isolation.

The shift toward conversational discovery is also part of a larger trend in restaurant technology. Consumers are moving away from static filters and keyword searches toward more intent-based interactions. Instead of browsing lists, they are asking for suggestions that reflect specific contexts such as time of day, group size, or occasion. AI is particularly well suited to interpret and respond to those types of queries, making it an increasingly important layer in the discovery process.

For restaurant operators, this evolution introduces both opportunities and challenges. On one hand, more dynamic recommendation systems can surface venues that might not rank highly in traditional listings but are well suited to particular use cases. On the other hand, the criteria that determine visibility become less transparent, making it harder to predict how and why certain restaurants are promoted within a given platform.

There are also broader implications related to data and platform control. Systems like SevenRooms already enable restaurants to capture detailed information about guest preferences and behaviors. When combined with DoorDash’s scale and its expanding role across discovery and reservations, that data becomes part of a larger, integrated ecosystem. This can enhance personalization and drive higher engagement, but it also increases the degree to which restaurants rely on external platforms to access and influence their customers.

Zesty’s shutdown, then, is less about the failure of an idea and more about the maturation of a strategy. The app itself is being retired, but the functionality it introduced is being repositioned where it can have greater impact. DoorDash is effectively bringing discovery closer to the transaction layer, where it can directly influence both consumer behavior and restaurant outcomes.

In practical terms, that means the lines between discovering a restaurant, booking a table, and placing an order will continue to blur. Platforms that can unify those experiences are likely to gain an advantage as competition intensifies across the restaurant technology landscape.

DoorDash is not stepping back from AI-driven discovery. It is embedding it into the core of its platform, where it can shape decisions at scale and connect them to a broader set of services. Zesty may be going away as a standalone product, but the role it was designed to play is becoming more central to how the company operates and competes.

Elida Beauty, home of brands such as ST. Ives, VO5, TIGI, and Q-tips, says that it is using SnapLogic to establish a modern, independent technology foundation following its separation from Unilever.

As Elida Beauty transitioned to a standalone organisation, it needed to quickly build a new IT and operations environment capable of supporting a multi-market, partner driven operating model, without the complexity typically associated with large enterprise separations.

Working with implementation partner Pace Integration, Elida Beauty selected SnapLogic as the integration backbone for its new environment, connecting multiple ERP instances, 3PL and 4PL logistics providers, supply chain planning tools, and data fabric platforms through a single, governed integration layer.

“We were building a new business from the ground up while continuing to operate at global scale,” says Tim Bates, Head of IT Strategy and Applications at Elida Beauty.

“Coming from large enterprise CPG environments, I was used to integration programmes that could take months before delivering real value. To achieve separation, we needed a complete, scalable platform from day one - one that could be rolled out across multiple markets. With SnapLogic and Pace, a lean team was able to design, test, and evolve integrations at speed, delivering in weeks what would traditionally take quarters. That acceleration proved truly transformative for the business.”

Elida Beauty operates a highly distributed model, working with multiple external partners across manufacturing, logistics, and order-to-cash processes. Each partner brings its own systems and data formats, making integration essential to maintaining consistency across regions.

Using SnapLogic, Elida Beauty was able to standardise these interactions through reusable integration patterns, enabling rapid deployment while maintaining flexibility as the business scaled.

Since go-live, the platform has processed thousands of sales orders, running over 400 integration pipelines and with 30 scheduled tasks orchestrating critical workflows across ERP, supply chain planning and finance systems. All orders, shipments, invoices and planning data now flow through SnapLogic’s unified integration layer.

“In a programme with tight timelines and a lot changing as we went, SnapLogic and Pace enabled Elida’s teams to move quickly, adapt in real-time, and reuse integrations across regions,” says Thomas Peach, Co-Founder, Pace Integration. “That collaborative way of working was key to hitting the separation milestones and has left Elida with a strong foundation from which they can continue to scale.”

Beyond the initial build, Elida Beauty is using SnapLogic to support ongoing change. Business and IT teams can modify integrations in hours as business needs evolve, rather than needing re-engineering entire systems.

SnapLogic also underpins Elida Beauty’s data fabric and analytics strategy, delivering near-real-time operational data into cloud platforms for forecasting, inventory visibility, trade promotions management, and executive reporting.

“Elida Beauty demonstrates that organisations don’t have to choose between separating, modernising and scaling, they can do all three simultaneously,” says Nick Pike, VP EMEA at SnapLogic. “By making integration the foundation of their digital core, they’ve transformed what could have been a complex disentanglement into a streamlined, future-ready architecture. That unified, governed data layer now gives them the agility to adapt quickly and the foundation to scale intelligent automation as the business evolves.”

With core systems now operational, Elida Beauty is shifting focus from foundational build-out to simplification and automation, reducing manual processes while maintaining a clean, low-code architecture. The company is also exploring how SnapLogic’s agentic capabilities can help identify issues earlier, improve exception handling and automate processes such as supplier onboarding.

Frasers Group has launched a new AI shopping assistant across the FRASERS website as it looks to make online product discovery faster, smarter and more intuitive for customers.

The new tool, called Ask Frasers, has been rolled out on the retailer’s premium fashion and lifestyle platform and is designed to help shoppers find relevant products more easily through conversational search.

Frasers Group said early results have been strong, with sales conversion rates rising by 25 per cent compared with traditional search experiences since the assistant was introduced.

Powered by Algolia’s Agentic Experience, Ask Frasers uses AI to interpret product data including key features, availability and real-time popularity signals in order to deliver more tailored responses to shoppers.

Customers can use the assistant to ask questions, refine preferences, compare products and narrow down options across FRASERS’ fashion and beauty offer through a more natural search experience.

Richard Lallo, group head of customer marketing at Frasers Group, said: “At Frasers Group, we are committed to enhancing the customer journey, from discovery through to conversion, by creating innovative solutions that give shoppers a connected, relevant and efficient shopping experience.

“The launch of Ask Frasers marks an important step forward in this mission, enabling us to offer a faster, smarter and more seamless way to shop our premium fashion and lifestyle offering, reinforcing our belief that intelligent technology is shaping the future of retail.”

The launch builds on the recent relaunch of FRASERS, formerly House of Fraser, as Frasers Group continues its efforts to reposition the brand as a premium fashion and lifestyle destination.

Earlier this year, the retailer unveiled Cat Deeley as the face of its Spring 2026 campaign as part of the next phase of the brand’s evolution.

Frasers Group said the introduction of Ask Frasers reflects its wider investment in AI-driven retail technology, as it looks to improve speed, relevance and personalisation across the digital shopping journey.

Gap Inc. and its family of brands - including Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta - says it is enhancing its global supply chain with Inspectorio’s AI platform, which increases visibility, quality management, and supplier collaboration.

The retailer will leverage AI to realise product traceability through data collection and automated task execution.

“Gap Inc. sets a new global standard for how leading retailers use AI to streamline supply chain performance and deliver for consumers,” says Chirag Patel, CEO, Inspectorio. “We’re proud to support the company’s vision with AI powered technology that turns transparency into a competitive advantage and helps it make faster, smarter decisions across a complex global supplier network.”

The global leader in golf training selected Square to drive deeper customer insights, modernize payments, and match its technology-first approach to the game

Square today announced that GOLFTEC, the world's largest provider of golf lessons and premium club fittings, has selected Square to power its payments and commerce infrastructure across 200+ US locations. Built on more than 30 years of precision coaching and cutting-edge swing technology, GOLFTEC chose Square for its ability to seamlessly connect in-center and online commerce operations, bringing the same data-driven standard to its business infrastructure that it has long delivered to golfers.

Since its founding, GOLFTEC has helped more than 1.8 million golfers improve their game by facilitating more than 20 million lessons. With tools like 3D motion capture, launch monitors, and AI-driven coaching plans, GOLFTEC remains the authority on golf technique, helping students improve their scores by an average of seven strokes. With more than 1,000 coaches trained at GOLFTEC headquarters and deployed across its locations, the company has made precision and personalization the foundation of everything it does.

"As one of the most technologically advanced experiences in sports training, everything we do is designed to drive our mission of helping people play better golf," said Chris Koske, CMO at GOLFTEC. "We needed a commerce platform that could keep up – one that was just as seamless, flexible, and intuitive as the experience we deliver to our players."

A commerce platform that keeps pace

GOLFTEC manages in-person transactions across hundreds of training centers, alongside a growing mix of retail, wholesale, and direct-to-consumer channels. Its previous payment systems weren't keeping pace. Coaches were spending valuable time troubleshooting payment issues in the training bay or managing problematic transactions at the front desk. Manual reconciliation slowed the corporate finance team's ability to close the books. And limited visibility into chargebacks and customer data made it difficult for leadership to act on timely insights.

"If we want to be a data-driven company, we need to be a data-driven company everywhere," said Joe Calabria, SVP of Accounting and Finance at GOLFTEC. "It was just hard to do the basic blocking and tackling of recording a sale before Square."

Square stood out for how quickly and cleanly it integrated into GOLFTEC's existing business tools without adding friction for the people who use it every day. Implementation was completed in four weeks, allowing the company to modernize quickly and at scale without disruption.

With Square, GOLFTEC now has a unified commerce platform that enables:

Seamless, mobile-friendly payments across in-center, retail, and ecommerce channels
Real-time visibility into transactions and customer activity across all locations
Streamlined refunds, reconciliation, and dispute management
Flexible payment options, including buy now, pay later (BNPL), preserving a familiar experience for customers

For GOLFTEC's coaches, the impact was felt immediately. Rather than acting as the front line for payment issues, they complete transactions in seconds and return attention to where it belongs: on the lesson.

"Our coaches want to devote their energy to their students, not wrestling with payment processing,” continued Koske. “Square gives them the freedom to keep their attention where it should be: on fixing swings and helping players enjoy the game more. That frictionless ease of use is why we chose Square."

By replacing manual workflows with a connected, intuitive system, GOLFTEC has improved efficiency across its growing footprint.

Key results include:

~10,000 hours saved by reducing administrative work tied to payments and refunds
2-day faster financial close, giving leadership access to fresher performance data earlier in the month and enabling faster, better-informed decisions
$100K saved through improved dispute and chargeback handling, after Square flagged a rise in disputes and worked proactively with GOLFTEC to tighten contract structures and accelerate response times

A Foundation for Continued Innovation

For a company that has spent more than three decades pushing the boundaries of what's possible in golf instruction, the back office is no longer a step behind. Square gives GOLFTEC a flexible foundation to continue evolving, from expanding payment capabilities to gaining deeper insights into customer behavior and purchasing patterns across every channel.

"GOLFTEC has built an incredible experience that blends technology, expertise, and personalization at a remarkable scale," said Nick Molnar, Global Head of Sales and Marketing at Block. "Choosing the right commerce partner means unlocking real impact across all of these fronts. We're seeing thousands of hours saved, faster financial close, and coaches who are free to focus on what they do best: helping students play better golf. When two innovators come together with a shared commitment to driving excellence, this is what's possible."

About GOLFTEC

GOLFTEC stands as the world leader in golf improvement, with a global presence of more than 260 locations worldwide and a dedicated team of more than 1,000 Certified Personal Coaches. Founded in 1995, GOLFTEC has been unwavering in its mission to help individuals play better golf. Through the fusion of world-class golf instructors and cutting-edge teaching systems, GOLFTEC has been instrumental in guiding hundreds of thousands of golfers toward achieving their goals. In 2025, the company continued its momentum by providing more than 1.9 million golf lessons, and integrating SKYTRAK software into the in-bay experience.

About Square

Square helps businesses turn transactions into connections and businesses into neighborhood favorites.

In 2009, Square started with a simple invention – the first mobile card reader, which changed how the entire financial system thinks about small businesses. Square has since grown into a global business platform helping millions of sellers of all sizes participate and thrive in their communities.

Whether independently run or a global chain, Square understands that sellers succeed when they have the freedom to focus on the experiences that keep customers coming back. From point of sale and payments to online commerce, staff management, cash flow tools, and more, Square brings together the tools sellers need to run and grow on one intelligent platform. For more information, visit squareup.com.

A growing grocery wholesaler is replacing legacy demand and fulfillment tools with an AI-enabled unified platform.

Gordon Food Service Store, which is increasing its brick-and-mortar footprint across the U.S. and serves both consumers and grocery retailers, was seeking to reduce the amount of manual work required to manage its 4,500 SKUs spanning bulk foods, fresh products, and everyday groceries, especially across fresh categories. In addition, the company wanted to provide planners with clearer visibility into inventory performance.

The wholesaler is now implementing the Relex Solutions forecasting and replenishment platform to support workflows such as daily and intraday recalculations, store replenishment, and distribution center inventory visibility. Gordon Food Service Store intends to leverage these capabilities to help minimize spoilage, improve on-hand accuracy, and balance ordering across the week.

“We were looking for a partner who could help us improve accuracy, reduce manual processes, and support our teams as we grow,” said Mark Fisher, director of supply chain at Gordon Food Service Store. “Fresh forecasting and daily decision-making are critical in our business. The combination of Relex’s deep retail expertise, speed of execution, and advanced AI capabilities made this the right fit for us.”

The company also hopes the platform will enable faster adjustments when availability changes at the distribution, helping it to respond in near-real-time.

“Gordon Food Service Store is exactly the type of retailer we’re built to support,” said Doug Iverson, senior VP, North America at Relex Solutions. “Our platform will help them scale their planning processes as they expand. Their strong focus on fresh, combined with new store growth, makes this a great partnership for the future.”

Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets, is also implementing Relex forecasting and replenishment solution to replace its legacy in-house proprietary systems and manual processes.

As a result, AWG intends to optimize distribution center forecasting and replenishment, including fresh optimization, across its network.

Gordon Food Service Store is a subsidiary of Gordon Food Service, the largest family-managed broadline foodservice distribution company in North America, and operates 185 stores across the U.S.

SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and Haleon, a global consumer health company, today announced Haleon’s decision to adopt SAP Business Suite to enhance the enterprise’s digital infrastructure and advance AI capabilities across its business.

This decision will help Haleon operate, scale and serve consumers in new ways by building stronger, more agile foundations for delivering its trusted everyday health products. It marks a significant milestone in Haleon’s transformation into a world-class consumer company.

“Delivering a better consumer experience starts with strong foundations, and leading digital technology and infrastructure are at the heart of this,” said Claire Dickson, Haleon’s chief digital and technology officer. “Our latest partnership with SAP is another important step in our journey to becoming a world-class consumer company. It will revolutionize how we operate, with AI-enabled systems driving faster, simpler, more integrated ways of working. This will allow our people to focus on what matters most—serving consumers and unlocking growth.”

SAP Business Suite will drive the simplification and standardization of critical processes across Haleon’s global operations, enabling more integrated, automated end-to-end processes across diverse parts of the organization.

With clearer visibility across markets and more intuitive systems replacing fragmented workflows, the business can operate with greater speed, consistency and resilience. These improvements strengthen supply chain responsiveness, support innovation and help Haleon better respond to changing consumer needs. This enables Haleon to deliver trusted everyday health products at scale while strengthening collaboration with the healthcare professionals who recommend its products to consumers worldwide.

Haleon can drive greater business efficiencies by integrating core processes across finance, supply chain, HR and sales in one connected system with real-time data. By building AI into everyday work and embedding it within Haleon’s digital infrastructure and across its functions, teams can make better data-driven decisions and respond more quickly to changing consumer needs. The automation of routine work across multiple functions frees up employees’ time so they can focus on more strategic work that delivers value for the business and consumers while accelerating growth.

This digital transformation program builds on a long-standing relationship between the two companies, with the transition from Haleon’s current platform on SAP ERP Central Component beginning later this year.

“AI outcomes depend on connected processes and trusted data,” said Peter Maier, SAP’s senior vice president for strategic customer engagements. “With SAP Business Suite, Haleon is building an AI-ready foundation that embeds intelligence across the enterprise, helping simplify operations, improve resilience and scale innovation.”

Haleon plans to adopt SAP Cloud ERP applications with embedded AI and deploy the SAP Business Data Cloud solution to harmonize SAP software and third-party data in a governed, single source of truth. This connected platform will be able to support AI-assisted innovation and enable agentic AI, where AI agents can identify issues earlier and recommend actions across key business processes.

The retailer can better understand why customers did not purchase an item after an in-store visit and then share those signals with store managers
A person walks past a clothing store.
“With customer consent, we’re able to track when a customer has been actually in one of our stores and follow up with them later to get feedback about their visit,” Abercrombie & Fitch’s Madison Blair said. Daphne Howland/Retail Dive

While most Abercrombie & Fitch customers purchase online, the store remains a critical channel for customers to browse and shop.

That’s especially the case for its sister brand Hollister, which serves a younger customer who prefers shopping in person.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co., the parent company of both brands, has long gathered customer insight from these trips, including surveys from customers who bought something in a store, online reviews, and more, according to Joelle Cann, head of voice of customer and user experience research at Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

But executives often asked the CX and voice of customer team: What about those customers who don’t buy in store? What was missing from their experience that led them to walk away without a bag in hand?

“We’re often relying on the feedback that’s easiest to collect, while a large part of the journey is harder to see,” said Madison Blair, senior research analyst on Abercrombie & Fitch Co.’s voice of customer team, speaking at the Qualtrics X4 conference in Seattle last month.

It leaves the team with questions about what went wrong.

“Is there something going on in the store that isn’t working, is it an assortment issue, an apparel issue? Is it a pricing perception issue? Is it an experience issue? Is the store layout right?” Cann said during a session at X4. “So that’s kind of the gap that we’re trying to bridge. And there’s a reason it’s so hard to bridge. These customers are incredibly hard to find and communicate with. There’s no transaction. There’s no point of communication with them. And so they are anonymous.”

Abercrombie & Fitch’s team deployed geofencing — often used as a type of location-based marketing and advertising — to track in-store visits and request feedback from those customers who did not purchase an item.

“Geolocation isn’t new. Many companies use this to detect what a customer is near entering one of their stores, but what’s different about our approach is how we use that signal to capture feedback,” Blair said. “So with customer consent, we’re able to track when a customer has been actually in one of our stores and follow up with them later to get feedback about their visit.”

As the carrier embraces AI and data analytics across its operations, it’s training employees on how to better wield new technologies, a UPS executive said.

UPS cargo being loaded or unloaded from an airplane
UPS cargo sits beside an airplane. AI has helped UPS navigate changing trade regulations and keep imports flowing smoothly, according to Mallory Freeman, UPS president of global enterprise data analytics and generative AI. Courtesy of UPS

UPS’ network isn’t just powered by employees, trucks and planes. The company has spent years investing in its artificial intelligence and data analytics capabilities, helping the carrier anticipate and limit disruptions like customs and weather-related hangups.

“As we curate better data, AI can actually help us turn faster decision-making into better experiences for all those customers on the receiving and shipping end of the movements,” Mallory Freeman, UPS president of global enterprise data analytics and generative AI, said in an interview with Supply Chain Dive.
content image

UPS prioritizes collecting data that’s “clean and accessible for our AI systems to remember,” and uses that data to inform possible network adjustments during challenging periods like peak season or inclement weather, according to Freeman. UPS tests the impact of its planned routing adjustments via digital twin technology, simulating how the decision will affect package flows before the carrier implements it in the real world.

“So it’s the right data, the right processes, and then the right ability to make decisions, simulate those decisions and make adjustments, especially as conditions change,” Freeman said.
AI helped UPS adapt to post-de minimis era

AI has played a hand in how UPS navigates changes in global trade policies like new tariffs, helping the carrier move shipments across borders faster. For example, UPS uses AI and machine learning to ensure imports abide by the correct Harmonized System product classification codes, tariff rules and policies, Freeman said.

“It’s extremely challenging to embark on these historic changes without compromising service. But that’s really just what we do. We roll up sleeves and get after it.”

The company’s capabilities came in handy particularly when the U.S. de minimis exemption was eliminated in August, which resulted in more formal customs clearance processes for low-cost packages. In March 2025, UPS cleared about 21% of 13,000 U.S.-bound packages without manual intervention on a daily basis, CEO Carol Tomé said on a Q3 earnings call last year. In September 2025, the carrier cleared 90% of 112,000 daily packages with no manual intervention.

“To manage the increased volume and complexity, we enhanced our customs brokerage capabilities by integrating Agentic AI,” Tomé said. “This advanced technology streamlined formal entry processes.”

Tapping AI to maintain reliable shipping flows will be critical for UPS as it navigates global trade upheaval and a U.S. network overhaul driven by reduced package volume from major customer Amazon. The carrier remains focused on how it can creatively leverage and synchronize its range of tools to ensure delivery reliability isn’t compromised for its 10 million-plus customers, according to Freeman.

“It’s extremely challenging to embark on these historic changes without compromising service,” Freeman said. “But that’s really just what we do. We roll up sleeves and get after it.”
UPS leverages AI for pricing edge

One area UPS has leveraged AI and data analytics in for years is pricing, said Freeman, who described it as “both a science and art” involving the company’s technology and sales team. For example, UPS salespeople use tools like Deal Manager, which provides real-time pricing guidance, to boost customer win rates and draw in more revenue.

Before leveraging AI, UPS’ sales team relied on tribal knowledge and past experience to negotiate a deal, Tomé said during a conversation with the Digital Supply Chain Institute last year.

“Today, the deal is scored through generative AI,” Tomé said. “And the salesperson can watch the score as they’re negotiating the terms and conditions. And get this, our win rate is higher and our discounting is lower than it was.”
Employee upskilling a UPS priority

UPS continues to explore ways technologies like AI can speed up processes or handle currently manual tasks for employees, Freeman said. At the same time, UPS is investing in upskilling its workforce globally through learning development programs, with the goal being for employees across the company to confidently use data analytics and AI as their role evolves, Freeman said.

“The right technology and the right people involved in that technology means that we can actually get to better customer service, better experiences for our customers, better outcomes,” Freeman said.
UPS employees load boxes from a posi-sorter chute into an air container at UPS Worldport on January 3, 2022 in Louisville, Kentucky.

Upskilling has been on UPS’ mind as the company overhauls its network and leans more on automated sortation processes. During the Digital Supply Chain Institute conversation, Tomé said UPS’ vision is to have some of its sortation centers powered by robots and featuring automated sorting, bagging and label application capabilities.

“Coupled with that is the opportunity to upskill our people and create opportunities for them to do different kind of work,” Tomé said. “And I’m excited about that, too, because someone’s going to have to oversee the robots.”

The carrier isn’t alone in upskilling employees for the AI era. Rival FedEx has invested in an AI fluency program for 300,000 employees, including advanced training for all of its technology specialists, Vishal Talwar, FedEx EVP and chief digital and information officer, said at the company’s 2026 Investor Day in February.

UPS and FedEx’s push to improve workers’ skillsets could help both carriers succeed in implementing AI at a wider scale. Investing in employee upskilling is critical for companies looking to drive operational improvements with AI, said Alan Amling, an assistant professor of practice at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in an interview. However, many organizations are focusing their investments on the AI systems themselves, rather than distributing money more evenly between the technology and training for employees to wield AI effectively.

“They’re spending money on AI systems but not spending the money on change management, on upskilling employees, and that’s probably where I see the biggest issue,” said Amling, who formerly served as UPS’ VP of corporate strategy.

Competera is working with Joybuy, JD.com’s online retail business, to manage its footprint across Europe. The partnership moves Joybuy away from manual market monitoring by implementing a centralised system that tracks competitive shifts in real-time.

Teams at Joybuy now receive processed market insights every morning. This schedule allows category managers to identify price gaps and adjust their own points before the peak shopping hours begin. By consolidating these insights into a single interface, it says that it has reduced the labour hours previously spent on manual research and spreadsheet updates.

"Joybuy is scaling rapidly in a complex environment," says Alex Halkin, CEO at Competera. "We're providing the data architecture they need to stay competitive without increasing their operational headcount."

A Joybuy spokesperson says: "We want customers to feel confident they’re getting a great deal every time they shop with us. By combining our global brand partnerships with smarter pricing tools, we can keep prices competitive and deliver joy seamlessly from first click to doorstep."

The current phase of the roll-out focuses on broadening SKU coverage and refining the data feed for local price points in each European market Joybuy serves. The two companies are planning to integrate deeper demand analytics into the workflow to further refine the retailer's strategy.

Partnership supports Minnesota grocer’s commitment to premium quality, operational excellence

Kowalski's Training EmpowerFresh Main Image
Kowalski's staff received detailed training on EmpowerFresh’s AI-powered produce inventory and ordering platform.

Kowalski’s Markets, a family-owned Minnesota grocery chain, has deployed EmpowerFresh’s AI-powered produce inventory and ordering platform created for independent grocers. The platform gives Kowalski’s produce teams access to AI-driven forecasting, inventory visibility and smart ordering tools designed specifically for fresh departments. It aims to help retailers reduce shrink, boost product turns, optimize ordering decisions and ensure peak freshness for customers.

“Produce is one of the most dynamic and challenging departments in grocery retail,” noted Robert Austin, president and CEO of Kansas City, Mo.-based EmpowerFresh. “Kowalski’s Markets has built an incredible reputation around freshness and quality. We’re proud to partner with their team and provide tools that help their fresh departments operate even more efficiently while continuing to deliver the exceptional standards their customers expect.”

The deployment also includes strong collaboration with Wadena, Minn.-based Russ Davis Wholesale, a fresh produce supplier serving retailers across the Midwest.

“Russ Davis has worked closely with Kowalski’s Markets for many years, and we’ve always admired their commitment to offering the best produce experience possible,” said Tyler Neu, VP of sales at Crazy Fresh, a Russ Davis brand. “EmpowerFresh brings powerful technology to the produce department, and we’re excited to see how these tools will help Kowalski’s continue to elevate their operations while maintaining the quality their customers love.”

For Kowalski’s, the decision to deploy EmpowerFresh reflects the independent grocer’s continuing investment in tools and partnerships that support operational excellence in its fresh departments.

“At Kowalski’s Markets, our fresh departments are our top priority,” said Max Maddaus, Kowalski’s director of perishable operations. “Our stakeholders in every one of our locations work incredibly hard to maintain the highest quality standards, and EmpowerFresh gives our managers better visibility and a smarter ordering tool to support that strategic priority. It’s another step forward in ensuring our customers continue to receive the freshest, best-tasting produce available.”

Operating 11 stores across the Twin Cities, Woodbury, Minn.-based Kowalski was founded in 1983 by Mary Anne and the late Jim Kowalski, and is currently run by Mary Anne and her daughter, CEO Kris Kowalski Christiansen.

Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken, the classic American QSR brand known for its homestyle fried chicken, is equipping its franchise system with Hi Auto’s AI Order Taker as a competitive tool for drive-thru operations. Following strong results across 30 locations and Lee’s system move to a unified POS system and menu database, Lee’s is now making the technology available to all franchisees, giving every operator the option to bring AI-powered ordering into their restaurants.
Supporting Franchisee Growth Through Proven Technology

For Lee’s, the decision reflects a broader commitment to investing in the tools that help franchisees succeed. Rather than mandating adoption, Lee’s is putting a proven resource in the hands of its operators and letting the results speak for themselves.

The approach respects franchisee independence while ensuring every operator in the Lee’s system has access to the same technology advantage. Franchisees can adopt AI ordering based on what makes sense for their business, backed by real performance data from stores already using the system.

“Our operators are the backbone of Lee’s, and it’s our job to give them every advantage we can,” said Ryan Weaver, CEO of Lee’s Famous Recipe Chicken. “After seeing the results Hi Auto delivered in our first 30 stores, including better labor efficiency, shorter lines, a happier team, and guests getting their orders just the way they want them, we wanted to make this tool available to every franchisee who wants it.”
Results That Give Franchisees Confidence

Across Lee’s restaurants already using Hi Auto, the AI Order Taker has consistently delivered over 95% order completion and 97% accuracy. For franchisees evaluating the technology, these aren’t pilot numbers. They reflect real-world performance across dozens of operating locations.

Restaurants using Hi Auto typically save 3-8 labor hours per day, see a 17% reduction in employee turnover, and experience a 1.5% increase in average ticket size. The system removes the burden of order taking from staff, reducing stress and freeing employees to focus on food quality and hospitality.
A Franchisor That Invests in Its System

Making AI ordering available system-wide required real groundwork. Lee’s corporate team worked closely with Hi Auto to deploy the AI Order Taker across company-owned restaurants first, building operational knowledge before extending the option to franchisees. At the same time, Lee’s undertook a significant effort to unify its menu database across the system, creating the consistency that reliable AI ordering depends on. Without a unified menu database, each franchisee’s setup is different enough to make scalable AI deployment a serious challenge.

“The move to a unified POS system and menu database has been significant heavy lifting on the brand side, but with franchisee support, it’s well underway,” said Weaver. “Together with Hi Auto’s technical excellence, we’ve reached a point where this can be available for wide adoption.”

Hi Auto powers nearly 1,000 drive-thru locations globally and processes more than 100 million orders annually. The platform is trusted by 200 franchisees across three continents, with a proven record of reliability at scale.

“Lee’s leadership understands something important: the best technology investments are the ones that empower your operator,” said Roy Baharav, CEO of Hi Auto. “We’re proud to be part of a franchise system that does the hard work to set its franchisees up for success.”

ShopriteX’s innovation team has built Pixie, a personalised AI shopping assistant for the Sixty60 app.
Pixie uses AI to deliver, curate and prepare personalised baskets: intelligently suggesting product restocks, new products and deals based on customers’ shopping habits.
The launch marks the next step in Sixty60's evolution as South Africa's largest on-demand grocery platform.

Sixty60 is the first online retailer in South Africa to introduce a Smart AI shopping assistant that is personalised to every user. Pixie - developed entirely in-house by ShopriteX - predicts what individual customers actually need, and when they need it. This marks the latest step in Sixty60’s evolution - using AI to make the app faster to use, more personalised and ultimately simpler to complete your shopping.

Shopping that knows you
At its core, Pixie learns from how each customer shops. Based on individual purchase habits, restocking patterns and preferences, it surfaces only relevant product recommendations, making it easier to find and reorder the things customers buy regularly.

The Smart Basket feature presents product cards in a brand-new interface that lets users simply swipe to browse, swipe up to remove, or swipe down to add to their basket. This means that the days of searching and scrolling through endless product catalogues to find regulars or relevant products are limited.

Beyond a fresh user experience, Pixie presents customers with personalised offers based on what they actually buy, as well as relevant, rather than random, deals.

"This is the dawn of using the best of AI to make shopping simpler and more personalised for consumers. Pixie is like a little friend, assisting each customer quietly in the background, making shopping and saving effortless. Shopping used to be something you did. But now, it’s something Pixie, your personalised shopping assistant, handles for you. It’s shopping, magically simplified.” - Neil Schreuder, Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer for the Shoprite Group

Home-grown technology, built for South African shoppers
Pixie was developed by a cross‑functional ShopriteX team of product designers, data scientists, machine learning engineers and software developers. Built on the same customer-focussed philosophy that created Sixty60, Pixie is local technology, developed by a South African team for South African shoppers.

Xtra Savings, the country's largest retail rewards programme, powers Pixie's personalisation engine that gets smarter with every shop. It is built on a foundation of privacy and trust, never compromising individual customer data.

Pixie launches in beta with Xtra Savings Plus members first. Future plans will see it becoming even more helpful – with conversational features that extend Pixie’s capabilities beyond just recommendations to automatically reordering household essentials or even planning weekly meals based on a customer's budget or what's in their pantry.

Pixie’s experimental service will start rolling out to the Sixty60 app starting 9 April 2026.

The new mayor of New York City is moving along with one of his signature campaign promises.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani said that New York City will open a city-owned grocery store by the end 2027. Plans call for the store to be located at La Marqueta, a city-owned marketplace in Manhattan's East Harlem neighborhood, which is home to a diverse community challenged by affordability issues.

Mamdani announced the news at a rally in Queen, N.Y., over the weekend celebrating his first 100 days in office.

“We’re going to make it easier for New Yorkers to put food on the table,” he told the crowd. “At our stores, eggs will be cheaper. Bread will be cheaper.”

The Mamdani administration plans to open La Marqueta by the end of 2027, and select future sites soon. All five of the mayor's promised city-run grocery stores (one in each borough) will be open by end of his first term (close of 2029), according to reports.

The city plans to partner with third-party grocery operators and collaborate on, among others, pricing and labor, reported CBS News.

2x-Increase in conversion from intelligent review summaries and tags

26%-Boost in conversion when NLP-powered collections are surfaced

95%-Of shoppers engage with AI-generated review summaries

Not since Databricks came around have I experienced this level of collaboration between data engineers and data scientists. Bringing everything together has facilitated a real cultural change in how our technical teams work together.
- Daniel Russotto, General Manager, Furniture.com
Furniture.com is the first place where shoppers can discover, compare and check out across multiple trusted furniture brands. In one experience, with one cart. As such, Furniture.com sits at the center of a vast, fragmented furniture ecosystem where millions of product records and reviews influence how consumers discover and purchase home furnishings. Inconsistent data and manual processes once made it hard to deliver reliable, intelligent shopping experiences at scale. By consolidating data and AI onto Databricks, Furniture.com operationalized generative AI across 4.5 million reviews and hundreds of thousands of products. AI-powered summaries and automated furniture collections now enhance the buying journey from engagement to conversion.
Scaling AI across 70+ retail partners exposes data gaps

Furniture.com operates as a one-stop shop for furniture and decor, merging more than 70 retail partners into a single-cart shopping experience. But as an aggregator, Furniture.com does not control the quality, structure or completeness of the data it receives. Each partner provides product feeds in different formats and varying levels of detail, making it challenging to deliver shoppers with consistent, engaging product information.

The team recognized that leveraging AI could turn messy data into actionable insights and a smarter shopping experience. But moving from concept to production required significant effort. As Furniture.com’s Associate VP of Data and AI, Yasel Garces, explained, “To adapt AI to your specific use case and deliver something meaningful to users, you need significant preprocessing and orchestration around the model. Calling an LLM alone is not enough. The real value comes from packaging it correctly within a well-designed pipeline.”

Scaling AI meant first solving an underlying challenge: fragmented, inconsistent and incomplete product data. Two high-impact product discovery problems — reviews and collections — made that quality gap especially visible.
Turning unstructured reviews into trustworthy insights

While many retailers host reviews on their own websites, that information does not always flow cleanly into syndicated product feeds. At scale, thousands of unstructured reviews per product created both a usability issue and an evaluation challenge. Furniture.com sought to build an intelligent review summarizer and tagger that could surface balanced, trustworthy insights without overwhelming shoppers.
Transforming disorganized products into curated collections

To create a more engaging shopping experience, Furniture.com introduced Collections — groups of coordinated furniture pieces designed to complement one another. A shopper who selects a sofa may want to see the matching loveseat or ottoman from the same line. However, retailers do not consistently provide structured collection metadata, making it difficult to consistently organize pieces in a way that makes sense for shoppers. Brianna King, Machine Learning Engineering Manager, described the ambiguity the team faced. “We have all the product titles, but there’s no clear way to identify which part of the title represents the collection. We had to build an enhanced proprietary system that could reliably extract the collection name and then group the other products that belong to that same collection.”

Across both use cases, data preparation was a central hurdle. Reviews had to be ingested from multiple vendors, deduplicated, cleaned and processed incrementally as new content arrived. Product titles required linguistic parsing to separate meaningful collection names from noise, along with change data capture to avoid reprocessing millions of records daily. Model accuracy and QA introduced another layer of complexity. For collections, there was no perfect ground truth dataset to measure traditional accuracy. “We have a strong in-house QA team that reviews outputs to ensure they actually make sense. But once a model is in production, we want that process to be automated. That’s why it’s so important for us to have robust alerting systems in place,” said Brianna.

The scale of their ambition made it clear that fragmented tools and disconnected workflows would not be sufficient, setting the stage for a unified data and AI foundation.
Powering intelligent product discovery with AI on Databricks

To operationalize AI across millions of data points and dozens of partners, Furniture.com consolidated its entire data and machine learning infrastructure on the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform. By bringing data engineering, model development, governance and serving into one platform, the team reduced architectural friction and created a production-ready AI foundation.
AI-powered review summaries and tags

As Furniture.com’s Data Engineer, Vishnu Kalakata, stated, “Furniture.com has successfully processed over 4.5M reviews across 30 partners, with coverage continuing to expand. Using Delta Lake and PySpark Databricks Jobs, we built reusable pipelines that ingest review feeds from multiple vendors, de-duplicate records, apply cleaning and transformations and implement change data capture so only new or updated reviews are processed. Through this architecture, we transformed unstructured data into a scalable, revenue-driving system.” All workflows are orchestrated through Lakeflow Jobs, allowing the team to trigger pipelines as new feeds arrive and monitor job execution in production.

Using Model Serving, the models are deployed as PyFunc models and registered in Unity Catalog, where they are versioned, tagged and promoted across environments. The first model generates AI summaries and a balanced overview of positive and negative themes. The second model analyzes sentiment and extracts structured tags that power filters on the product detail page. According to Brianna, “As soon as we deploy a model and log it to Unity Catalog, we can test changes quickly in development and promote updates without disrupting downstream workflows. With Databricks Asset Bundles and GitHub Actions, the entire CI/CD process is automated.”

By operationalizing review ingestion, summarization and tagging within a unified Databricks environment, Furniture.com transformed raw, unstructured feedback into a scalable trust engine. What was once fragmented review data is now a structured, revenue-driving asset that improves product discovery and increases engagement across partners.
Helping shoppers discover complete rooms, not just individual products

Furniture.com deployed eight models to identify and validate related furniture pieces. Natural language preprocessing and business-logic filtering are executed within Databricks pipelines, with a final validation step that leverages an LLM to confirm collections. As Yasel explained, “We architect everything in Databricks to be modular. The models exist as independent components within the overall pipeline, which means we can unplug one model and plug in another without reworking the entire system.”

The team uses MLflow to log model experiments, track versions and manage promotions between environments. During development, generative models are evaluated using MLflow’s LLM-as-judge. “We maintain dashboards that track key output metrics, including the ratio of positive to negative sentiment and any model errors. QA actively monitors these signals via Power BI dashboards to ensure the models are performing as expected,” explained Anwaar Msehli, Senior Applied ML Engineer.

By transforming ambiguous product titles into validated collections, shoppers can now easily explore complete product lines, driving higher engagement and conversion.
Building a governed foundation for continuous innovation

As AI moved into production, governance became essential. Models are versioned in Unity Catalog, experiments tracked in MLflow and pipelines are orchestrated through Lakeflow, creating end-to-end traceability across the AI lifecycle.

Unity Catalog provides centralized data lineage and access controls across both datasets and models, ensuring experimentation, deployment and monitoring occur within a single controlled environment. “Having your entire data ecosystem in one place is a game changer,” said Yasel. “Data supports AI, and AI helps improve the data. It becomes a two-way relationship that continuously strengthens the system.”

With governance embedded across data and models, Furniture.com can scale quickly without sacrificing reliability. New features and partners integrate seamlessly, and AI evolves as a continuously improving system that strengthens both data quality and shopper experience.
Doubling conversion with generative AI

With the Databricks Platform, Furniture.com operationalized generative AI across millions of reviews and enriched more than 265,000 products directly within the shopping experience.
Revenue and shopper behavior

The way shoppers interact with product detail pages has changed as AI delivers a more personalized and engaging experience. “We saw that 95% of users engaged with these intelligence features,” explained Danica Chan, Furniture.com’s Product Manager. Across products where shoppers engage with AI summaries and tags, Furniture.com observed a 2x increase in conversion rate. The summaries serve as a leading indicator, with the vast majority of shoppers reading them before making a purchasing decision.
Merchandising impact

By structuring more than 8,200 collections (12% of the catalog) into coordinated product lines, conversion increased by 26%. What began as a data enrichment effort has become a core merchandising driver, making it easier for customers to discover complementary products and build cohesive spaces.
Operational and productivity gains

Not only is the team delivering innovations, but they’re doing so at unprecedented speed. In a single year, they deployed eight production AI models with an AI team of only five people. “Not since Databricks came around have I experienced this level of collaboration between data engineers and data scientists. Bringing everything together has facilitated a real cultural change in how our technical teams work together,” said General Manager Daniel Russotto.

By unifying data and AI at scale, Furniture.com is transforming shopping into a seamless, intelligent experience — driving engagement, boosting conversion and setting a new standard for retail innovation.

Sainsbury’s Nectar360, which owns and operates the Nectar loyalty scheme, has partnered with Uber so members can use their points for Uber and Uber Eats. The move marks the first time Nectar has partnered with a ride hailing platform.

Through the Nectar app, customers can choose how many points to use with Uber, from 500 to 4,000 at a time - equivalent to between £2.50 and £20.

Amir Rasekh, Managing Director, Nectar360, says: “We’re giving people more ways to enjoy the value they get from Nectar, making everyday moments more rewarding. Being able to use Nectar points on Uber rides or an Uber Eats treat is something we know people will love, because it fits so easily into everyday life. It’s an exciting first for us too, as our only ride‑hailing partner.”

Katie Hunter, Head of Grocery and Retail at Uber Eats, says: “Nectar has built a deep connection with British households, and we are so pleased to become their first ever ride hailing and delivery partner. By integrating our services, we’re providing Nectar's loyal members with even more flexibility in how they spend their rewards, whether that’s a reliable ride home or a favourite meal delivered to their door, making daily life just that bit more seamless.”

Dive Brief:

Target is expanding one of its shipping methods this year, using drivers from its Shipt subsidiary to bring next-day deliveries to customers straight from the retailer’s stores, executives told sister publication Supply Chain Dive.
More than 100 stores in 50 markets will offer the direct-from-store capability, called Target Last Mile Delivery Direct, by the end of 2026, Shipt CEO Kamau Witherspoon said. A year ago, the method was available in six stores in two markets.
By initiating fulfillment at stores closer to the end customer, Target can “eliminate some of those traditional logistical bottlenecks” and lower delivery-related costs, Witherspoon said. Using Shipt for deliveries lowers Target’s cost to serve customers by about $2.50 per package compared to national parcel carriers, he added.

Dive Insight:

The expansion will bolster Target’s growing roster of next-day shipping capabilities by taking advantage of its robust retail footprint and delivery subsidiary. Target injects packages into parcel carrier networks for some deliveries, and Shipt drivers also deliver next-day shipments originating from Target sortation centers, said Daryl Glass, Target’s senior vice president of fulfillment and last mile.

“We’re expanding into key markets where we may not have a sortation center, or we’re seeing the need and demand is high,” Glass said of Target Last Mile Delivery Direct.

In March 2025, Target revealed it was testing Shipt delivery routes from stores for “brown box delivery,” or shipping options outside of same-day delivery and pickup, touting speed and cost benefits.

Target’s next-day coverage for brown box shipments currently reaches 50% of the U.S. population, Glass said. That will grow to over 60% by the end of this spring as the company introduces next-day delivery coverage in 20 new metro areas.

Not every Target store will serve as an origin point for next-day deliveries, however. Target has concentrated order volume at certain retail locations, while some of its other stores have scaled back their fulfillment duties. Target initiated a pilot of the strategy in Chicago last year. Results showed the retailer was able to offer next-day delivery on five times more of the local shipping demand, Target announced in September.

Target’s determination of which stores should handle more volume, and which should handle fewer orders, considers multiple factors, according to Glass. For one, Target has to make sure the company can match inventory levels at particular stores to order fulfillment demand. The company also has to ensure stores have enough time to staff up their operations and train employees to handle online orders effectively.

“It’s the same on how we may ramp down in some of those stores that are no longer doing it,” Glass said. “How do we ensure we’re reallocating some of that time and energy into the store?”

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has announced the renewal of its multi-year partnership with Marks & Spencer (M&S). The deal will see TCS continue to serve as M&S’s strategic technology partner as the retailer pushes ahead with its digital transformation efforts.

Sacha Berendji, Operations Director, Marks and Spencer, says: “Technology transformation is a key strategic priority for M&S as we invest for growth. Having the right suite of partners, with access to the latest developments in AI and digital expertise is imperative. I am pleased that we are extending our partnership with TCS, who will work alongside our in-house team as we accelerate our digital transformation.”

Krishnan Ramanujam, President - Consumer Business Group, Tata Consultancy Services, comments: “M&S is a highly cherished and iconic British brand, that has always been at the forefront of retail innovation. We are proud of our long standing partnership and delighted to be chosen to support its enterprise transformation.”

“Our strong contextual knowledge of its business helped lead the digital wave for M&S. As it now accelerates its technology transformation we look forward to bringing our enterprise scale AI capabilities, deep retail expertise, and engineering leadership to create sustained value, business agility, and a future ready retail enterprise.”

Hitting back

Last year, The Telegraph published an article entitled 'M&S ousts Indian outsourcer accused of £300m cyber attack failures'.

Marks and Spencer had, it noted, not renewed a deal with TCS to run its tech helpdesk.

The article closely followed on from the Indian provider conducting an internal investigation over being the origin of a cyber attack that hit the UK retailer’s systems at a cost of hundreds of millions of pounds.

And it caused something of a stir at TCS.

“TCS provides a number of technology and IT services for M&S and we value our partnership with the TCS team,” M&S said in a statement. “Regarding the IT service desk contract specifically, as is usual process, we went to market to test for the most suitable product available, ran a thorough process and instructed a new provider this summer.”

Meanwhile, TCS had its PR peeps contact RTIH with a spokesperson telling us: "The report published by The Telegraph is misleading, with several inaccuracies including the size of the contract and the continuity of TCS’ work for M&S.”

They added: “As both M&S and TCS have clarified, the service desk contract with M&S followed a regular competitive RFP process initiated in January 2025, with M&S opting to proceed with other partners much prior to the cyber incident in April 2025. These matters are hence clearly unrelated. In fact, we continue to work on numerous other areas, in our role as a strategic partner for M&S and are proud of this longstanding partnership.”

“On the cyber incident itself, as previously clarified, TCS conducted a review of our own networks and systems and our conclusion is that the vulnerabilities have not originated from there. TCS does not provide cyber security services to M&S. This is a service that is provided by another partner.”

Tesco, Britain's biggest food retailer, has partnered with U.S. software group Adobe to deepen its use of artificial intelligence ​in analysing customer data, aiming to boost sales through ‌more personalised marketing, the groups said on Monday.
Retailers are increasingly turning to AI in pursuit of revenue growth and cost savings, using the technology ​to offer more personalised shopping experiences.

A central plank of ​Tesco's (TSCO.L), opens new tab strategy is becoming more digital, stepping up personal engagement ⁠with customers and developing growth avenues such as Whoosh rapid delivery, ​its online platform Marketplace, and retail media.
PARTNERSHIP WILL USE AI WITH ​CLUBCARD DATA
Tesco's said its partnership with Adobe (ADBE.O), opens new tab will combine AI with data from its Clubcard loyalty scheme, which provides lower prices for members and has ​been a key driver of market share gains in recent ​years, according to analysts.
The Clubcard scheme, which covers more than 24 million UK ‌households, ⁠is one of the largest loyalty programmes in Britain and already provides some personalised offers and product recommendations.

Tesco, which has a 28% share of Britain's grocery market, said the partnership would accelerate ​personalised engagement with ​customers, helping ⁠the grocer better anticipate their needs and improve the relevance of content, offers and experiences across ​its channels.
Adobe engineers will work directly alongside Tesco personalisation ​and ⁠AI teams.
"Working with Adobe, we can be even more responsive to the needs of shoppers," Becky Brock, Tesco group customer digital transformation ⁠director, said.

Tesco is testing a new AI-powered assistant in its app as the supermarket looks to make meal planning and basket building easier for shoppers.

The retailer has launched the tool as a beta trial for colleagues, with around 280,000 staff set to get early access over the coming weeks before a wider customer launch later this year.

Initially, the assistant will focus on meal planning, using conversational prompts to suggest recipe ideas based on customers’ preferences and dietary needs.

It will also be able to help shoppers add ingredients to their basket in the Tesco app, using factors such as previous shopping history and product preferences.

Tesco said the long-term aim is to use AI to reduce the time, cost and friction involved in grocery shopping, while also helping customers cut food waste by suggesting meals built around ingredients they already have at home.

The supermarket is using its colleague base as an early testing ground, giving staff the chance to road-test the assistant in their day-to-day lives and feed back on what works before the tool is rolled out more widely.

Chief executive Ken Murphy said the assistant had the potential to reshape how customers shop with Tesco over time, particularly through more personalised support built into the app.

The project has been developed by Tesco’s in-house app, data science and engineering teams, working with UK AI consultancy Tomoro AI.

Tesco said the assistant is part of a broader push to build out its AI capability, following years of using AI behind the scenes in areas such as Clubcard personalisation and operations.

Toynk Toys, which makes branded and licensed toys, including the Cardsmiths and Syndicate Collectibles brands, is bolstering its product lifecycle management (PLM).

The company is working with Centric Software, using an AI-enabled platform to accelerate and optimize processes from concept to commercialization.

Because the 20-year-old company had expanded quickly to more than 46 global markets, it faced new complexities in its operations as it looked to scale. As a result, it sought out a solution that could streamline product development, vendor collaboration and licensor approvals.

Among its biggest challenges was decentralized product data across emails and spreadsheets, which limited Toynk's visibility into approval stages, product status and even post-launch performance.

"The fact that there was just a complete lack of process was the main thing," Gena Disney, director of digital operations at Toynk Toys, said in a statement. "We are a fully distributed team and between the sister brands, our product information is decentralized. We have no single source of truth."

While the company considered an internal PLM tool, it quickly realized this would place an unnecessary burden on its teams and ultimately slow time to market. Instead, through an external portal, the company can better communicate with vendors for approvals and use an open service pool to create a single source of truth.

Toynk expects benefits such as reduced manual efforts, better transparency and accountability, and enhanced reporting with fewer errors so it can improve decision-making across assortment and investment planning.

Huws Gray, the UK’s largest independent builders’ merchant, has selected Slimstock to underpin a supply chain transformation project.

It says that, by centralising planning across its UK branch network, it will improve availability, strengthen customer service and create a more balanced inventory position.

As a one stop shop for trade professionals, self-builders and DIY customers, Huws Gray supplies thousands of product lines across building materials, timber, tools, roofing, electrics and plumbing. Following organic growth and recent acquisitions, the business combines national scale with local branch expertise to keep building projects on track.

Adrian Wallington, Chief Commercial Officer at Huws Gray, says: “We are committed to delivering efficiency, innovation and value for customers. As we strengthen our presence throughout the UK, our supply chain plays a pivotal role in delivering dependable service, ensuring the right breadth and depth of stock is available where and when customers need it.”

As the business expands, planning decisions have increasingly needed to balance local responsiveness with group wide coordination. Centralising planning will allow it to standardise forecasting and replenishment decisions across the network, to better meet demand while creating a scalable operating model to support continued growth.

As part of the transformation, Huws Gray will adopt Slimstock’s AI powered supply chain planning platform to automate ordering across the branch network.

A key requirement for Huws Gray was the ability to enhance planning capabilities without disrupting existing systems. Slimstock’s platform will integrate with the group’s existing Border Merchant Systems ERP.

Wallington adds: “Slimstock offers an intuitive, purpose-built planning platform with proven success in similar merchanting businesses. We are confident that Slimstock is the right partner to help us deliver measurable benefits across our branch network, suppliers, and customers.”

Richard Evans, Chief Commercial Officer at Slimstock, comments: “As two proudly independent companies, Slimstock and Huws Gray share a strong cultural alignment and focus on delivering value to customers. Together, we’re building a supply chain that will accelerate Huws Gray’s expansion.”

Serve First, an AI driven customer experience and performance management platform, has secured £5 million in new funding from Pembroke VCT and the Midlands Engine Investment Fund II, through fund manager Mercia Ventures.

Both firms first invested in June 2025 as part of a £4.5 million funding round. Serve First has raised £9.6 million in total to date.

Since the initial investment, Serve First has landed new customers including Brentford FC, The Sushi Co, Topps Tiles, The Body Shop and Spud Bros. It has also expanded into Europe by securing a contract with a chain of over 2,500 pharmacies in seven countries.

Launched in 2023, Serve First’s AI powered platform collects and analyses customer feedback from in-store surveys, online reviews and mystery shopping. Its software then translates these insights into actions for frontline teams.

The latest funding will be used to strengthen its sales and marketing function, including the imminent appointment of a Chief Revenue Officer, and will also support continued product development, including further investment in AI capabilities.

Serve First was established by Founder and CEO Erol Ayvaz, who has more than 20 years’ experience in technology and customer experience, including roles at Asana and Market Force Information. The company, which is based in Milton Keynes, now employs 25 staff.

Fred Ursell, Head of Investments at Pembroke Investment Managers, says: “The best investments reveal themselves quickly. Erol is a rare founder – someone who has both operated multi-site businesses at the coalface and scaled software companies, which means he understood this problem from the inside before Serve First ever wrote a line of code.”

“That founder-market fit is showing in the numbers: since backing him in June 2025, Serve First has grown revenue at breakneck speed, deepened relationships with its existing enterprise clients, and secured a significant European rollout with a major client. When a portfolio company executes this well this early, increasing our support is an obvious decision. We're excited to back the team through the next phase.”

Ayvaz comments: “The company’s growth over the last year is a clear indication of the market appetite for Serve First’s offering, and this latest funding injection speaks to both the future potential of the business and the strong delivery over the last year by our exceptional team.”

“It’s an exciting time to be operating in this space, and there remains considerable untapped potential for Serve First’s offering. We expect market demand to accelerate rapidly with the rise of agentic AI, which is making customer experience far more critical to business performance than ever before.”

Howard Mitchell, Investment Director at Mercia Ventures, says: “The Serve First team have built a great product that is loved by their expanding list of customers. With market demand strengthening, this is an opportune time for them to accelerate growth. We are excited to support them on their journey.”

Two venues at Resorts World Las Vegas will adopt point-of-sale technology from Ordr Technologies.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Ordr says the Zouk Nightclub and Ayu Dayclub venues at the Resorts World property will take advantage of Ordr’s artificial intelligence-capable POS system to unify all elements of the transaction, including the purchase, payment processing, fees, consumer protections, and guest marketing for each revenue interaction at the venues.

Ordr says its system can use in-venue and digital transaction data to build guest profiles that Resorts World Las Vegas can use to better understand spending behavior, to identify high-value guests, and to personalize the guest experience. Zouk has a capacity of 2,160 individuals and Ayu, centered on a pool, features disc jockeys and other entertainers.

Ordr says its system also provides insight into payment data that can help eliminate reconciliation gaps and make each transaction as easy as possible.

Ordr is no stranger to large-volume venues. In 2025, the Orlando City SC, a Major League Soccer affiliate, adopted the POS platform. It also has many other venue placements, with the Houston Oilers, Ottawa Senators, and the Vegas Golden Knights from the National Hockey League, and the Chicago Sky from the Women’s National Basketball Association.

Resorts World operates 26 hotels globally and is part of the Genting Group, a Malaysia-based corporation.

Walmart advertisers have new opportunities to reach customers via social media.

Walmart is unveiling new social media offerings for brands participating in its Walmart Connect retail media network (launched in 2021 as a revamped version of the Walmart Media Group). These include self-serve access, closed-loop measurement, and new shoppable formats.

As a result, for the first time, self-serve advertisers can use Walmart Connect social media to create integrated, full-funnel campaigns, starting with Meta and expanding to other platforms such as TikTok later in 2026. An API for tech partners is also planned for later this year.

Participating advertisers and agencies can now activate the same Walmart audiences across their social and onsite placements. In addition, self-serve advertisers can launch, optimize, and measure social media campaigns within the Walmart Connect Ad Center. Social media ads appear under Walmart’s handle and feature a supplier’s or seller’s product.

Other new Walmart Connect offerings

Walmart is also continuing to expand closed-loop measurement across social platforms, with closed-loop measurement via LiveRamp’s data clean room now available for Meta and closed-loop measurement also available for TikTok and Pinterest.

The retailer is also introducing an “add-to-cart” feature on Meta, TikTok and Pinterest. Instead of a multi-step shopping process where customers must leave those apps to add a product to their cart, they can now add up to 10 products directly to their Walmart cart from social ads.

Burt’s Bees' participation in a beta test campaign that combined offsite display with social add-to-cart drove 42% of ad-attributed sales, with 95% of shoppers who added-to-cart buying within a week of exposure, according to Walmart data.