Reflections on NRF Europe 2025: Personalisation, Evolution and Acceleration

Over the course of three days, more than 15,000 retail professionals from 50 countries, 480 companies and 200 world-class speakers gathered in the French capital. The agenda focused on rethinking and discussing how we grow and adapt amidst an industry landscape affected by tariffs, shifting supply chain requirements, dynamic technology advances and ongoing geopolitical uncertainty.

Amongst the interesting anecdotes, founding stories and company journeys, three mega trends stood out, echoed by speakers and brands across every stage.  

Personalisation gets an upgrade

An animated and inspiring session from Snipes CEO, Dennis Schröder and Bruno Owikitoi, Director of Brand Sponsorships at Paris Saint Germain (PSG), put personalisation in the spotlight, setting the stage for one of the show’s key themes for the week.

Schröder started by explaining the heritage and purpose of Snipes, highlighting the company’s unique approach in its 27-year journey of blending global trends with local, community-based culture. “There is no culture without community and reach without relevance is worthless. Authenticity is the key for brands. If it is relevant, it will resonate and if it resonates, reach will follow.”

He stressed that a significant factor in the success of the brand partnership with PSG was Snipes’ ability to combine the global brand platform with a hyper-localised approach that delivered an authentic and hyper-personalised brand experience.

KPMG’s François-Xavier Leroux spoke about hyper-personalisation as a “silent revolution set to redefine ecommerce.” While personalisation is not a new concept for marketers, today the data and technologies that are available mean hyper-personalisation is its next natural evolution.

“The goal of hyper-personalisation is to anticipate customer needs and to generate engagement. But for that, it requires the mastering of certain subjects, including data, AI and deep learning,” Leroux added.

Evolution through innovation

It was clear from the brands on stage at NRF Europe that standing still is the fastest way of moving backwards in a rapidly changing world. We live in a time where brands can lose relevance in an instant if they are not moving forward, evolving, and innovating. The question is therefore not whether a brand should innovate, but rather how to deliver innovation that creates meaningful, positive, long-term change.

Carrefour’s Global Chief Data Officer, Miguel Angel Gonzalez, had an interesting take on the broader topic of innovation. He highlighted the importance of the “Think platform first, then technologies,” approach. While he expects that the store will catch up with the customer experience in terms of personalisation and connected experience, he mentioned the pivotal role change management plays in any technology project. Ultimately, he concluded that “technology only works if it has been designed for people.”

Hajir Hajji, CEO of Action, championed the ‘glocal’ approach to delivering innovation. She mentioned the importance of having a “simple and scalable model that could be managed centrally by a single IT platform but delivered locally by regional experts.”

The continual need for evolution and reinvention of retail experiences - for employees and customers - was a key message from Google and Leroy Merlin. Like Carrefour’s Chief Data Officer, both made a point to recognise the importance of change management and working cross-functionally to deliver speed to value.

Accelerating the future

Whether it’s consumer trends and shifting expectations or technology advances, the pace at which the retail industry is moving is breathtaking. The explosion of AI in all its flavours - evolving from Generative AI to Agentic and Robotic forms - has accelerated the urgency for organisations to deploy new innovative solutions and cut the time to return on investment.

According to Lenovo and Nvidia research, two-thirds of organisations are struggling to generate a return on investment from AI projects, which makes the choice of where to deploy AI critical.

Dr Olaf Maecker, VP of AI and Automation at Metro, commented that the German retailer is using AI to solve challenges in three key areas: the customer journey, employee experiences and to deliver business efficiencies. He was, however, quick to point out that “data quality remains the key to AI success. You cannot expect results to miraculously happen. Feeding a model poor data will always deliver poor outputs.”

Ran Hu, Director of AI for Retail at Nvidia highlighted some of the areas AI is being deployed into supply chains, including demand forecasting, digital twins, intelligent warehousing and distribution centres, last-mile optimisation and employee efficiency.

Narek Verdian, the Chief Technology Officer at ON, took particular care to note that the company’s technology is powering the human experience and that he felt “AI should be powerful, but quiet.” Hélène Chaplain, Global CIO at Pernod Ricard, said that when it comes to AI, “human and machine capital needs to work and align together. AI should be thought of as a strategic enabler for business, not necessarily about a fast return.”

Hu added that the aim of applied AI is to “simplify the path to scalability, but this can only be achieved through a true ecosystem of partners.”  The emphasis on ecosystems and partnerships was a poignant reminder that the path to AI nirvana is not one that should be taken alone. In short, the message about AI was positive, tempered with a degree of trepidation.

While AI will give more power to more customers, brands will have to adapt and innovate at pace. Decathlon’s Thibaut Peeters stressed that although speed is becoming increasingly critical for retailers in 2025 - driven largely by AI advances - it should not come at the expense of authenticity and trust. A sentiment we can surely all agree with.