Kathleen Mitford’s Post

Last week’s #NRF2026 gave me the chance to hear from the most innovative leaders in the retail industry and see how Microsoft’s trusted AI is helping their organizations move the needle, grow their impact, and empower their teams to focus on work that draws on their expertise, creativity, and unique perspective. A consistent theme was the return on intelligence they are experiencing: the value retailers gain when they bring data, insights, people, and AI together across daily workflows and their entire value chain. I loved hearing how The Coca-Cola Company works with Adobe to integrate AI into their end‑to‑end marketing workflows, helping teams create content that feels true to each of their more than 180 brands while delivering personalized experiences to millions of customers across hundreds of markets and channels. Ralph Lauren shared how they bring heritage to life with Ask Ralph, an AI-powered personal stylist that helps customers like you and me find looks that fit our style, occasion, and preferences. The experience reflects the character of the brand and offers guidance that feels personal, intuitive, and consistent across all channels. And The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.'s story is also very inspiring: they're integrating agentic AI into planning, supply chain, and marketing to work alongside their teams and provide clearer insight, faster alignment, and greater precision across a global organization. Our latest blog highlights how agentic AI makes all this possible: https://lnkd.in/dXPEgzyn Thank you to my wonderful team for bringing "Retail Forward: Return on Intelligence" to life through the voices of customers and partners, our incredible booth, and interactive demos: Lindsay Berg, Amy Vener, Kristen H., Justin Padley, Lydia Fisher, Hope Ashcraft, Shruti Goenka, Randi Danley, CMP Were you at #NRF2026? I'd love to hear what stood out to you! #AI #AgenticAI #AIforRetail