How AI is transforming retail customer experience:
3 disruptions and 5 actions for retailers

Mark Ruston
Apr 16, 2026

Retailers have always believed in the power of a great experience, but can they prove its value?

Our most recent report from the Capgemini Research Institute, Reimagining customer experience: Human-led, AI-powered, reveals that 92% of retail executives say that CX is a core driver of their growth strategy, but only 68% report that they can correlate it to a direct, measurable impact on the bottom line.

This gap is set to become even more pronounced as we enter the agentic commerce era where AI agents take on more tasks related to discovery, selection, and purchase for consumers and more decision-making, orchestration, and execution for enterprises. In this context, AI will become both a driver of experience excellence and source of complexity, putting greater pressure on retailers to translate AI investments into measurable business value.

In this post, I recap some of the key research findings for retailers about how AI is impacting the shopper experience — and the steps they can take to draw value out of these changes.

3 ways AI is changing the retail customer experience

According to our survey, shoppers show a strong willingness to use AI agents across a wide range of tasks now and expect to add to this task list in the near future. For example, 38% already trust AI agents to manage routine purchase with 55% expecting to allow agents handle reorders in the next three years.

As AI becomes embedded across the shopper journey, it is fundamentally changing how experiences are designed, delivered, and measured.

These three shifts highlight where AI is creating the greatest disruption and how retailers can adapt to stay competitive.

1. Rising data privacy concerns in AI-powered retail

The pace of AI driven change may depend in part on how well retailers align with customer privacy and security expectations. According to our research, 85% of consumers are uncomfortable with AI agents recording personal data without consent, whilst 38% of executives believe doing so is fine if data is used to improve the CX. Meanwhile, only 8% of executives are concerned about data security, compared to 81% of consumers who say the same.

2. The shift from query-based interactions to outcome-driven shopping

As AI maturity advances, its role within the shopper journey is evolving from information provider to outcome orchestrator. 

According to our survey, 78% of executives report that their organization is actively moving CX from query-based interactions to outcome-driven experiences, with 66% designing AI around customers over-arching shopping missions, rather than single queries.

Percentage of executives agreeing that they have enabled agentic AI capabilities to improve customer experience

In practice, this might mean a grocery shopper asking an AI agent, “Help me plan my weekly dinners with high-protein options under $50,” or a social media user saying, “Find me an outfit for a summer wedding under €200,” with AI selecting, styling, and purchasing in one seamless flow.

3. The emergence of AI-to-AI commerce and zero-UI retail

Leading retailers are moving from AI‑assisted shopping to AI‑to‑AI commerce, where customer agents place routine orders and retailer agents autonomously validate, fulfill, and deliver.

Eventually these transactions will all be completed in a ‘zero UI’ environment free of screens, menus, or channels. Instead of clicking, searching, or switching interfaces, customers will increasingly delegate intent to AI agents, expecting outcomes to be executed seamlessly in the background.

To prepare for this, retailers must move beyond front-end experience design and focus on connecting systems, data, and workflows to enable autonomous execution.

5 key actions retailers must take to capture the value of AI-powered customer experiences

AI is raising the bar for what great experiences look like while making them more complex to deliver. To stay ahead, retailers must move beyond isolated improvements and take a more integrated approach to how experience is planned, measured, and executed.

Here are five takeaways from our recent report that highlight this need:

41% of retailers say the absence of KPIs and/or clear roadmap is the most significant challenge to improving the CX. Without a defined path forward, efforts become fragmented, making it difficult to prioritize investments, align teams, and scale what’s working. This is especially true when it comes to AI-assisted or full AI-to-AI commerce models.

Only 34% of retailers report being able to tie improved sales from acting on CX feedback and deploying improvements to CX. For the remaining two-thirds of retailers, the challenge isn’t collecting experience data, but how to connect it across the business to measure impact. As AI re-defines CX, it may also become a unifying force, disseminating CX data across functions that can be analyzed and quantified to propose actions based on leading indicators.

Over the next three years, 60% of retailers say that journey fragmentation will be the greatest barrier to CX excellence. AI needs to help connect the journey by orchestrating data, systems, and decisions, turning fragmented touchpoints into a continuous, end-to-end experience for consumers.


78% of frontline staff say the lack of real-time access to customer data limits personalization. By equipping employees with intelligent tools and timely insights, retailers can enable more relevant interactions that drive revenue and long-term growth.

70% of consumers say they receive too many promotional messages, increasing the likelihood that they will withhold personal data. With data remaining the critical element of every experience strategy, retailers must communicate clearly with consumers about how their data is being used and understand consumer preferences deeply to avoid consumers hitting the ‘unsubscribe’ button.

Why customer experience matters more than ever in retail?

A great customer experience has always been critical for retailers, but our research suggests its impact may be even greater than previously understood.

69%
of shoppers say they can forgive a product flaw, but not a frustrating or impersonal experience
60%
of consumers say the CX is a stronger driver of loyalty than product quality or price
63%
have switched brands and 61% would reduce spending due to a poor experience

With numbers like these, the message from consumers is clear: Experience excellence doesn’t just matter to consumers—it drives business outcomes.

To learn how your organization can use experience improvements to drive business value, download Capgemini Research Institute’s latest report on CX transformation, Reimagining customer experience: Human-led, AI-powered.

Author

Mark Ruston

Mark Ruston

VP, Global Retail Lead, Capgemini
Mark Ruston is Capgemini’s Global Retail Lead with 22+ years in consulting and transformation. He helps Tier 1 retailers and CPGs bridge strategy and execution, driving growth and measurable outcomes. With global experience and deep supply chain expertise, Mark champions AI to boost productivity and reduce waste — positioning operations as a key driver of consumer experience.

    Capgemini Research Institute

    Reimagining customer experience: Human-led, AI-powered

    capgemini-research-institute capgemini-research-institute
    Consumer trend 2026 web banner
    Point of view

    AI agents for shoppers: Rise of agentic AI in retail experiences
    Report

    What matters to today's consumer 2026

    capgemini-research-institute capgemini-research-institute

    FAQs

    AI is changing retail customer experience by moving brands from query-based interactions to more proactive, outcome-driven journeys. It also enables greater personalization, automation, and support for AI-assisted purchasing.

    Customer experience ROI is often difficult to measure because data is fragmented across channels, functions, and systems, making it harder to tie CX improvements directly to revenue, loyalty, or retention.

    Retailers should build a clear CX roadmap, connect metrics to business outcomes, reduce fragmentation across journeys, empower frontline teams, and communicate clearly about customer data use.