The articles of Global Retail Trend are written by journalist Yukiko Matsuoka.
This is a special edition featuring articles from NRF 2026, which was held in January of this year.

At this year’s NRF, AI dominated the conversation, surging with even greater momentum than the previous year.
In particular, Google’s appearance at the keynote session and their strategic partnership with Walmart underscored the growing presence of AI in the retail industry. In this issue, we present a curated selection of the latest AI case studies across a wide range of business areas, from the trending “agentic commerce” to improvements in on-site operations and employee empowerment.