As a longtime agency leader and experienced member of the communications community, I entered NRF ’26 Retail’s Big Show wondering whether I might feel overwhelmed by a wave of technology moving faster than I could comfortably keep up with. Revolutionary change doesn’t always come easily when you’ve built a career on human relationships, intuition, and experience. Still, I felt compelled to step outside my comfort zone and broaden my knowledge.
Before entering the Javits Center, I asked myself a practical question: Why is a PR professional attending the National Retail Federation Big Retail Show? The answer became clear almost immediately. Retail today, whether direct-to-consumer or brick-and-mortar, is no longer about a single channel. A retailer’s website or storefront isn’t the brand’s headquarters; it’s just one part of a much larger omnichannel ecosystem. With more than 1,000 exhibitors and over 100 sessions across three days, NRF highlighted how complex today’s retail environment is, especially in the age of AI.
What surprised me most on the show floor wasn’t just how advanced AI has become (although mind-boggling); it was how unavoidable it felt. This is no longer a “nice to have” or an experiment. Session after session reinforced the same message: AI is quickly becoming table stakes, and organizations that fail to acknowledge that reality risk falling behind. Across suppliers, retailers, and service providers, AI showed up not as a replacement for people, but as a way to reduce friction, increase efficiency, and support smarter decision-making. Used thoughtfully, it can boost productivity and even make us enjoy our work more.
Rather than feeling anxious, I left feeling energized. There was real relief in seeing how agentic AI can take on repetitive, time-consuming tasks and free people up to focus on strategy, creativity, and relationship-building, bringing us back to the parts of our professions that drew many of us to this work in the first place.
What ultimately reassured me most was a consistent theme at NRF: human experience still comes first. Retail and the customer journey remain about understanding people, their behaviors, emotions, and expectations. AI enhances human judgment; it doesn’t replace empathy, creativity, or intuition. At its best, this technology should enable more meaningful human connections.
In full transparency, AI also played a role in helping me process this experience. After the show, I used AI to turn my raw, in-the-moment notes into a short podcast episode, allowing me to listen back and reflect on what stood out most while it was still fresh. If you’re interested in hearing my unfiltered insights and immediate takeaways directly from the show floor, you can listen to that episode here. The perspective is still entirely mine—AI simply helped organize the thoughts and surface patterns I might have otherwise missed. Used this way, it became a valuable tool, rather than a replacement.
I left NRF 2026 optimistic. The future belongs to those willing to engage, learn, and stay curious. And at Darby Communications, that likely means more client trips, more face time, and continued investment in understanding where consumer behavior—and communications—are headed next.
Stay here for more AI updates, and to learn more, please check out Parts 1 and 2 of our PR & AI blog series!