Digital Front Door
The Digital Front Door explores how technology is reshaping the retail industry and redefining the in-store customer experience. Each episode features conversations with industry leaders, innovators, and solution providers who are driving change at the intersection of digital tools and brick-and-mortar retail. From AI-powered shopping carts to retail media, personalization, and operational efficiency, the show dives into the strategies and solutions that help retailers improve shopper engagement, increase loyalty, and grow revenue. Listeners can expect practical insights, forward-looking ideas, and real-world examples of how the “digital front door” is opening new opportunities in retail.
Digital Front Door
How AI Agents Rewire Retail and CPG
The ground under retail and CPG is shifting from automation to true agency—and the difference is night and day. We unpack how AI agents don’t just summarize dashboards or send alerts; they connect scattered systems, make sense of messy signals, and take action inside real workflows where time, margin, and customer trust are on the line.
We walk through the find–understand–act model that’s redefining daily work. On the retail side, store teams use agents to align labor with live demand, smooth inventory flow, and keep shelves ready without guesswork. Merchants fuse POS data with social sentiment to shape smarter assortments and negotiate with proof. Marketers move from idea to launch in hours, not weeks, as budgets shift to what’s working in the moment. Supply chain teams predict stockouts and trigger fixes before shoppers feel the pain. On the CPG side, sales and category managers run tighter collaborations with retailers, product developers check compliance and simulate performance pre-launch, and manufacturing listens to sensor vibrations to prevent breakdowns that stall output.
The message is urgent and practical: adopting agentic AI is no longer optional if you want speed, precision, and resilience. We share concrete examples, decision guardrails, and where to start—targeting high-friction workflows with measurable outcomes while building the data foundations that make agents reliable. If you’re serious about turning insight into action and winning the next quarter, not just the next decade, this is your roadmap to sharper execution and a stronger customer experience. If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague, and leave a quick review—what workflow would you automate first?
Well, hello everyone, and welcome to Scott's Thoughts. I'm Scott Benedict. You know, today one of the things I want to talk about is this era that it feels like there we're entering called the agentic era, a transformative moment, in my view, in retailing broadly and in CPG specifically. We've all been watching the rise of AI-powered assistance, but what's really different here in my mind is that these agents are no longer just automating repetitive tasks throughout retailing. They're beginning to fundamentally reshape how retail businesses operate, innovate, and connect with shoppers. Now, for years, retailers and consumer brands have struggled with fragmented systems, sales data in one place, inventory data in another, customer information in a third, buried someplace else. Agents are designed to break down these data silos. They can find relevant information across multiple platforms and formats, understand it by turning raw data into clear insights, and perhaps most importantly, act by embedding these insights directly into workflows in a number of different functional areas in a retail enterprise. Now think about what that means for day-to-day retail operations. Storeers can optimize labor scheduling and inventory flow into their stores in real time. Merchants and buyers can connect structured sales data with unstructured social media sentiment to build better assortments and negotiate more effectively with suppliers. Marketers can go from campaign ideas to execution faster and react to consumer behavior as it happens, as it shifts. And supply chain teams can predict and prevent stockouts before they even happen. Now, on the CPG side of retail, the applications are just as powerful. Marketing teams can personalize campaigns with higher returns on their ad spend dollars. Sales teams can streamline category management activities and collaboration with their retail partners. Product developers can use agents to speed up design to market cycles, checking compliance and even simulating performance of a product before it is even launched on the marketplace. And in manufacturing, AI can listen to sensor data, literally the vibrations on a factory floor, to prevent and predict when a breakdown of a piece of equipment might occur. Now, the article that I was reading that inspired this discussion makes the point that adopting a genic AI isn't really optional in retailing today. The pressure to innovate, no matter what your role in the ecosystem of retailing, is relentless, and those who lag behind will struggle to stay relevant. However, the companies that embrace this fine understand act model stand to unlock new levels of efficiency, innovation, and engagement with their customers. From my view, this is where the future of retailing broadly and the CPG elements of retail is most definitely headed. The eugenic era isn't science fiction. It's unfolding right now as we are here. If you're a brand or retailer, the question isn't really whether agents are becoming a part of your business. The real question is how quickly can you integrate eugenic AI into your business in workflows in a way that drives competitive advantage for you and for your business? That's what I've been thinking about. I'm Scott Benedict.