Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Welcome to What's in the Box, the brand new podcast brought to you by Box Technologies, powering retail with purpose. Boxtech delivers innovative and market leading customer engagement solutions that turn business ideas into a performing reality. From design and integration to ongoing support and maintenance, we're with you every step of the way. Now, this podcast is a little different to what you might be used to. It's audio only, totally unscripted, I promise. And we only run for around about 20 minutes because we're busy, our guests certainly are, and we're sure you are too. So let's get right into it. My guest today is Vice President of Strategy and Product at Aptos Retail. She looks after the future of retail and retail technology and identifies their impacts on both retail and Aptos's strategy and solutions. She has been a top global retail industry influencer for nearly 20 years with a background in retail and technology and a career-spanning PWC, Forester, Independent Retail, and tech startups. I'm delighted to welcome Nikki Baird to What's in the Box. Welcome, Nikki.

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

And thank you so much. I think you said that, well, it's it's afternoon here in the UK and uh you're coming at me from was it you said Denver, Colorado?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Denver, yeah. Yep. Yep, seven hours.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

So, Dawn, because I'm because I'm English, I've got to ask, what's the weather like?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

It is unseasonably warm. I probably regret to tell you because it sounds like it hasn't been a great weather season for the winter for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

But uh No, it's been wet and continues uh to be. So uh whether that's down to uh climate change, I wouldn't like to say.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 2:04

But anyway, so I said in the intro there, we yeah, these are really only sort of 20 minutes. We don't go on and on and on and on. So let's get into it. Before we kind of get into some of the topics that I want to discuss with you, tell us a little bit about yourself. You know, I said the intro there, but I'm sure there's more you can tell us, and also in particular about um Aptos retail and what uh what you're up to at the moment.

What Aptos Does And Why Stores Matter

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, I'll I'll start with Aptos and then kind of talk a little bit more about my role within it. So I Aptos is an enterprise software company that's focused 100% on the retail industry. We do the parts of retail that are hard and differentiating. So commerce is a big part of that, and unified commerce is it has been, I'll say, the the watchword, but it seems like things are changing and agentic is becoming more and more important.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

So what happened, what happened to Omnichannel?

From Omnichannel To Unified To Agentic

SPEAKER_00 3:00

Yeah, oh omnichannel was dead years ago. What are you talking about? Unified commerce came and killed that, and and now agentic has knives out for unified commerce. So it is it's very interesting times, but but really like focusing on connecting customers to products. So the product side of it's just as important to us as the commerce side. Um, and then I have, as you may have guessed, been spending a lot of time thinking about what the impact of agentic commerce will be. Like everybody right now is really focused on e-commerce because it is that kind of red alert moment, but but for me, it's all about the store. We look at the world through the lens of the store, you know, and as you well know, the store is extremely important. There's a lot of pressure on it right now. Not that there wasn't, you know, for the last 20 years, but I think I think there's even more change and pressure and disruption coming, and it makes it an interesting time to serve stores.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

Okay, so I can't let you get away with that, Gore. What do you think is because it's something that I think a lot about, and that's yeah, because the likes of you and I, we're we're always being asked, aren't we? Particularly around about December, January time. Okay, what can we expect in the year to come? And all so what what um if you had a crystal ball, yeah, let's have a bit of fun. What what do you think we're gonna be seeing in 2026?

2026 Forecast: LLMs In The Aisle

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, I mean, like in store, I think what we'll see is we'll see more consumers shopping with Chat GPT open, right? Like if you think back to the first Omnichannel experiences, it was when consumers pulled out mobile phones while they were standing at the shelf and were comparison shopping the retailer while standing in their store. And I that really was like in the whole span of omnichannel, I think that was a crystallizing moment for a lot of retailers, like, oh crap, the the four walls of the store are not safe any longer. Like, I can't just pretend that my website is a big store. I I actually have to deal with integrating across all of these things. And I I really feel like 2026 is gonna be the same kind of crystallizing moment, but for the role that LLMs and Gen AI play in the shopping process for consumers. So we're not at the point where it's an inflection point in terms of shifting consumer behavior, but we're seeing enough change in consumer behavior. And I definitely, I mean, any new technology for consumers, the first thing they do with it is they ticket shopping. And that also means shopping in the store, too. So I that's 2026 for me.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

I love that. Yeah. So to kind of explore that a little bit more, do you think then that I mean that one of the kind of one of the most common examples of this is, isn't it, it's natural language. And let's say I'm going to a wedding in Italy in July. What sort of outfit would you suggest? And I'm standing in XYZ store, let's say, okay, it it it could be, I was gonna say Nima Marcus or uh, but it wouldn't be now, would it? No, it wouldn't be. You know what I mean.

Equipping Associates For AI-Empowered Shoppers

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yes. Yes, uh, yes, uh, definitely. But but yeah, I mean, like when going back to that parallel Omni channel, you know, the at the time we were talking about how consumers had the internet in their pocket. And I think the analogy today is they're gonna have a store associate in their pocket, and they're gonna have a store associate that has access to every retailer's stores and not just yours. And to me, that's where it's like, okay, we've dealt with this power imbalance between the consumer and the store associate before. And we still have retailers, right, who are like, oh, I'm not sure if I want to put mobile in my store associate's hands because I don't want them, you know, to mess around and be playing games and not paying attention to customers and and you know, texting their friends or whatever. And it's like, that's so done. Like, why are we even having these arguments anymore? But now it's like, I mean, they won't stand a chance if they don't have mobile in their hands, and even more, at the very least, give them access to to Chat GPT or whatever so they can at least ask the same questions that customers are asking and have some parody. I mean, ideally you'd give them more than that, but like at least give them parody because it's it's gonna be a bit of a bug bath, I think.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I've been personally, I've I've been spending some some time when I get a spare half an hour or so or whatever, just you know, playing around. Well, playing around, that's not the right word. You know what I mean. Well, yeah, okay, I'm playing around.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Yes, yes, yes. Experimenting, learning.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Experimenting, yeah. But not just with ChatGPT, but with Claude, with Gemini, with Perplexity. But there's also actually some really interesting, all three government-backed AI online courses. And they're they're written by the likes of IBM, Salesforce, Accentra, people like this. So I need to have a look at that because I just think that we've we've got we've got to, you know, all of us, we we've got to understand what LLMs or AI, agentic AI can do for us. So I I put up in a meeting that uh we had here the other the other day that this you'll know this quote. It the one I found it, the version was attributed to Gary Kasparov, the the former Russian chess master world champion or whatever, that AI won't take your jobs, but it's people using AI that will take your job. And I really think that that could be become very true.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Yeah. I I agree. I mean, and and we've seen some initial transition from some of the companies who originally said, I'm not gonna hire, you know, like junior level people because I don't need them anymore, and AI is gonna replace them all. And now we've got companies like IBM who are saying, no, no, no, I'm gonna hire those people because they actually know how to use AI and integrate it in their lives because they did it to do all their homework in high school. Now I want those people in my company because they're the ones that culturally will drive more adoption than if you rely on the people who are not using it as a part of their everyday life.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yeah, absolutely. And of course, perhaps before we move on, but the interesting thing for me is that um Gen Alpha, who, as I understand it, are at the moment up to sort of 15-year-olds, give it a few more years, they'll be starting to enter the workforce. And the thing is, they've never known a world without AI.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah, really. I I totally agree. It's it it is a giant social experiment to some degree, right? Like whether we want to participate or not, it's happening.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So it's we're all hamsters on the wheel.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

Exactly.

Learning The Tools: LLMs And Skills

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Now tell me, I know that we're quite a few weeks on from NRF, and maybe people are NRF doubt and so on and so on. But maybe just give us a just a few thoughts on what you thought of the show and perhaps what um the uh the main themes for you were that came out of it.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Yeah, it's uh actually it's a good follow-on to the discussion we just had because like last year everything was adentic, right? It was the shiniest, newest object. Everybody was claiming that they had it. And now I think the theme this year was definitely more pragmatic. Like NRF always has these pendulum swings where they go from the extreme future to the very pragmatic present. And to me, 2026 was more the pragmatic presence. It was like we can't, we can't do all this stuff if we don't have our data in order. So there was much more talk about what kind of foundations do you really need to have in order to be successful in adopting AI and agentic and all of that. And and to me, that was that was helpful, right? It's like, yes, we can imagine the future, and that's awesome and exciting, and and that's half my job, but but you have to tie it back to something real. Um data, data becomes very clearly and very quickly um the the governor, the speed governor on how fast you can go.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Yeah, yeah, and and when you say data, and I know that this is it sounds a bit of a cliche, if that's the right word, it's got to be good data, hasn't it? Yes, it has to be quality.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

There has to be a lot of it, and it has to be accessible to AI. So you can you can have lots of data locked up in you know SQL databases, but if you can't get that out into a frame where AI can access and leverage it, then you've got nothing. Like that's that's the barrier today.

NRF Takeaways: Pragmatism And Data Foundations

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah. Now, earlier you you said, and for both of us, for both you and I, and also Aptos and Boxtech, we love stores. That's what we're about, and and and so forth. I one other thing I just want to ask you about, which I I saw that uh appeared to be uh one of the themes coming out from NRF. I think they described it as a store as a digital hub. I I kind of refer to it as a the connected store where you know I'm seeing you know, this we're we're bridging the gap, if that's the right way to term it, between online and physical retail. Was that something that you uh you saw?

The Connected Store: Physical As Differentiator

SPEAKER_00 12:44

Yeah, I think um, I mean, I think we're redefining like fidgetal and omnichannel, right? Everybody's still trying to come up with what the right the right term is or the right collection of concepts. And um digital hubs interesting. I think it downplays a bit the the value of the physical. Like I'm not willing to give that up because I feel like the in real life, the the smells, the music, the touch and feel of the things that you're buying, the sounds of other people, you know, conversing or gossiping, or that looks great, right? Like all of that very high bandwidth perception and interaction, I like that is gonna be an antidote to an increasingly digital world. So I think I to me, I feel like we're gonna see more retailers doubling down on the physical aspects. Yes, you want to collect as much data about what happens in that store as possible. And in that sense, it has to be a digital hub. But I think what you put into that store has to be like doubling down on the physical side of things because that is the differentiator of store. You just can't get the same experience online, and you never will. You you never will. So in the store, it's gotta be physical, it's gotta be community, it's gotta be experience.

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Yeah. I there's a you know, example uh of this, and I've seen uh once or twice where luxury, let's take the luxury sector, and let's say you're you're lucky enough to be in the market to to to buy a luxury watch and you're gonna be spending five, ten thousand dollars on this. Well, you want to feel it on your wrist, don't you? Because part of a watch of that price is the weight of it. And so you can't do that online, can you? So I I think you I'm sure you're right. It's just not the same.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, and I think I think there's something to be said too. I think what gets lost a lot is people assume that everybody wants buying to be ultra convenient. And I don't think that's true either. If you are buying, if you're buying an heirloom piece, right? Like this is a watch that I'm gonna wear and I'm gonna give it to my child who's gonna give it to their child, like you want the story of the watch. You want somebody who's a brand ambassador who loves that brand to tell you everything about that watch, that some things that you've never heard before, because you want that story to be part of that purchase, right? So if you just said, I want to go ChatGPT, tell me what's the best watch for the best price that will be a long-term heirloom, that takes all of the fun out of that experience. So I I I think we have to like, like I said, I think that's the antidote to the ultra-digital world is the experience and the stories and and the feels that we create as we shop. And physical retail is the place where that happens.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah, because we shop with physically with all our senses, don't we? Yeah. Yeah, we we we know that the you know, the story about yeah, okay, if you're gonna want to people to dip into their pocket a bit deeper, then make sure that when they enter the store, there's lovely aromas, there's music that I was in a refurbished uh John Lewis store here in the in the UK, and not so long ago, they'd spent I think 10 million or something like that. And what was interesting was as you went around, obviously it's a department store, but as you went around each different department, it was different music playing in different areas of the store.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So, and of course, you know, we know that you know the fresh bread or coffee or whatever it happens to be, it all goes into that mix.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Yep, absolutely. Oh, so much science behind that, too. I would, I would guess, right? Like you you know that people like test marketed all of that stuff too.

Consumer Behavior, Trust, And AEO

SPEAKER_01 16:46

Yes, yeah, yeah. So I mean you've already talked about consumer trends in a way in terms of the relationship with with AI and using Chat GPT when you're uh when you're out shopping. What else are you or Aptos seeing in terms of shifting consumer behavior? You know, what I write about, um I always say that we've become more demanding and our expectations are higher, but I also think that perhaps we're more fickle and and more difficult to predict in terms of our behavior. What's your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Yeah, I would I agree. And then I would flip it to the kind of the other side of that coin is trust, right? Like you wouldn't be so fickle if you completely trusted the brand that you were engaged with. And and I think that we've seen a lot of erosion of trust. I mean, we talked about it a lot coming out of the pandemic, that that consumers in general, like it was such a shock to their system that the level of trust that they were willing to give was lower than ever. But also as prices went up and inflation was out of control, there was a lot of trust that was destroyed, whether deliberately or accidentally, by the perception that retailers were raising prices and you know trying to trying to squeeze every last penny out of the consumer. And so I think in a general sense, consumers don't know what trust of a retailer or a brand is anymore. And that's where retailers need to invest to rebuild, is to understand trust because now they're putting their trust in ChatGPT and Claude. And as a retailer, that will erode your loyalty even more. If Chat GPT comes back and says this is the best product at the best price, they're not gonna care who the retailer is and they're not gonna care which brand it is. They're this is the best product and this is the best price because ChatGPT told me so. That that is a dangerous moment for for brands.

Events, Where To Find Nikki, Closing

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Absolutely. I I went to a breakfast event last week in London which covered exactly that, and it was a bit of an eye-opener for me because it and it talked about AEO, AI optimization. Yeah, we've got to have a new acronym, so we've got AEO. But it was fascinating, and they used the example of something like uh what's the best pair of you call it sneakers, we call it trainers, you know what I mean? You know, for if I'm running a certain type of race outside, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

But that's probably because it's a lot more complex.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and trust plays a role there, right? Like AI trusts certain resources and certain descriptions of products more than it trusts other resources or descriptions. So, you know, that optimization thing is important, but it's it's definitely leaning much more into trust than it is into keywords necessarily. So it's yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I said before we started this that the time would fly by, which it has, so we're nearly out of time. So before we close off, really want to, I know that you and I are going to be we'll be meeting up at the retail technology show in London April 22nd, 23rd. There's a plug for you, Matt Bradley, if you're listening to this, and we're both going to be on stage, not at the same time, you're sponsoring one of the main stages. Yep. So where where else can we see you, Nikki and Aptos, you know, coming up in the next few months or so?

SPEAKER_00 20:49

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely RTS. I think we're we're working with Retail Systems on a webinar. I'm not sure the timing of that one, but I think we're targeting April. So we'll see if that comes to pass. Uh but uh but yeah, and then you can always find me. Well, you can find Aptos at Aptos.com, but you can always find me on Substack with Retail Pulse Report, where it's uh all the things that I'm thinking about in the background. For some reason I write down and I publish them.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

So yeah, no, definitely I should recommend that to people. You can read my substack if you just want to hear some nonsense about retail, but uh read Nikki's if you really want to hear what it's to learn, learn something about retail. Nikki, look, listen, that was absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much. Really appreciate that. That's all we've got time for from what's in the box for now. New episodes will be dropping every two weeks, so please stay tuned. And if you want to find out more about Boxtech, please follow the link in the description. Thank you so much to Nikki and thank you for listening.