Groceryshop 2026 brought together more than 4,000 leaders across grocery, convenience, pharmacy, club, CPG, and technology. AI was impossible to miss, but the broader conversation was about how technology and new revenue models are reshaping the grocery experience. Below, we highlight a few key takeaways from the Clarkston team.

AI is Moving from Experimentation to Practical Application

As we explored in 2026 Grocery Industry trends report, the AI conversation is becoming more pragmatic. Rather than simply asking what AI can do, grocers are getting more deliberate about where it creates value, where it doesn’t, what foundation is required, and how to scale it responsibly.

A few selected highlights:

• Customer-facing AI: DoorDash’s Ask DoorDash illustrates the other side of the equation. Andy Fang, Co-Founder, shared that customers using it built 50% larger baskets, checked out five times faster, and purchased 60% more unique items.
• Be selective about tools: Several conversations reinforced that automation doesn’t automatically require AI, and AI doesn’t automatically require a chat interface. The use case should dictate the technology and how users interact with it.
• Data still matters: Data hygiene and grounding models in information retailers know and trust came up repeatedly. Flexibility across models also matters as technology continues to evolve.
• AI-assisted technology work: Technology teams are using AI to understand legacy code, accelerating migrations and analysis. Establishing initial patterns can help teams apply that work more broadly, offering a particularly tangible enterprise use case.
• Scaling governance: Organizations need clear ownership and a hub-and-spoke approach to governance. AI literacy also emerged as a priority, with Kroger’s concept of an “AI driver’s license” pointing toward organizations needing to mature alongside the technology.
• Set expectations appropriately: Early experimentation may not immediately show up in the P&L. Organizations need room to iterate while still being intentional about where they invest.

The Grocery Experience is Becoming More Connected and Contextual

Grocers are looking beyond traditional channel thinking toward experiences that connect customer context with operational context. The opportunity is to understand what a shopper is trying to accomplish and make it easier to get there.

A few selected highlights:

• Continuous supply chain: During her keynote discussion with BJ’s, Clarkston’s Jenny McLean explored how robotics and visibility create value when unified data helps teams act. That work should help to keep products on the shelf and make the member experience feel reliably simple.
• Moving across channels: Kroger’s Yael Cosset described the opportunity as “marrying customer context and operational context with any channel,” with the goal of making marketing and support relevant regardless of where customers choose to shop.
• From inspiration to basket: AI-powered meal planning and shopping assistants can help connect the question of “What should I make for dinner?” directly to a shoppable basket.
• Autonomous shopping: Longer term, agents could take on more of the work of building and replenishing baskets, raising the importance of reliability and customer trust.
• Instacart’s expanding role: Instacart is increasingly positioning itself as infrastructure for grocery rather than solely a marketplace or delivery service for end consumers. Retailers can choose how much of that stack they use, from fulfillment to digital storefronts, personalization, and media.
• Personalization gets more contextual: Useful recommendations depend on understanding both the customer and what the retailer can deliver. Inventory availability and fulfillment options help determine what a shopper can actually purchase, and pricing and promotions add context to those decisions.

Retail Media is Maturing Beyond Ad Revenue

Retail media remains a major growth opportunity, but the conversation is becoming more sophisticated. Retailers and brands are increasingly focused on incrementality, discovery, measurement, and how media fits into the broader shopper experience.

A few selected highlights:

• Still growing, but expectations are changing: Groceryshop identified retail media’s evolution from an advertising channel into a core part of the retail ecosystem as one of the conference’s three dominant themes.
• Proving incrementality: The Mondelēz discussion emphasized breaking down silos and proving incremental value. Return on ad spend (ROAS) remains useful, but brands also need to ask: “Did this investment actually create demand that wouldn’t otherwise have existed?”
• Digital discovery meets the physical shelf: Brands are increasingly thinking about how digital media influences what eventually happens in-store rather than treating eCommerce and store sales as completely separate outcomes.
• Retailers as content creators: Albertsons’ “Rico’s Tacos” soap-opera-style campaign is a good example of retail media expanding beyond conventional sponsored placements toward content designed to create engagement and discovery.
• First-party data: Retailers’ customer relationships and owned-channel data remain central to retail media’s value, particularly as they look to make advertising more relevant throughout the shopping journey.

Value is Becoming Broader Than Price

Value remains central to grocery, but retailers are competing on more than who can offer the lowest shelf price. Private label, health and wellness, convenience, and differentiated experiences are all becoming part of the value equation.

A few selected highlights:

• Private label: Centric emphasized the growing strategic importance of private label, while also highlighting that many retailers still lack purpose-built systems and processes to manage it effectively. Beyond that, store brands increasingly give grocers an opportunity to compete on exclusivity and brand identity, not just offer a cheaper national-brand alternative.
• Consumer perceptions are changing: Private label research points to younger consumers increasingly associating store brands with both quality and value. One discussion/panel shared that U.S. private label sales reached a record $271 billion in 2024.
• Health and wellness as value: Unilever’s framing of health as a lifestyle rather than simply the absence of disease points toward a broader opportunity for grocers and CPG to support how customers want to live and eat.
• Convenience matters, too: Faster fulfillment, easier meal planning, personalization, and reduced friction can all contribute to the customer’s perception of value, even when they don’t change the shelf price.

Looking Ahead

Groceryshop 2026 showed a grocery industry balancing rapid technology change with some very familiar priorities: understanding the customer, delivering value, and finding sustainable ways to grow. AI is creating new ways to address those priorities, but it’s only one part of the story.

Across these discussions, a common thread emerged: technology alone isn’t enough. How retailers connect customer understanding, trusted data, clear ownership, and execution will determine whether these investments actually improve the grocery experience.

AI-assisted: A human led the content and final approval of this piece, with AI used to support ideation, drafting, editing, summarization, or repurposing.