AWS Exec Reveals Agentic AI's Role in the Future of Physical Retail | 5IM
In this episode of 5 Insightful Minutes, AWS's Justin Swagler joins us to explain why physical stores remain critical in today’s digital-first retail landscape. He introduces a compelling framework for the future of retail powered by edge computing, IoT, and agentic AI.
⏱ Key Moments:
- 0:29 – Why physical stores still matter (Hint: 80%+ of sales happen there)
- 1:39 – The three pillars for retail tech success: Edge, Cloud, and AI
- 2:30 – The role of computer vision and unified store data
- 3:02 – How AI connects store systems for operational efficiency
- 3:56 – A glimpse into the future: Agentic retail automation
- 4:20 – Real-world examples: broken machines, out-of-stock items, and how AI solves them
- 4:55 – What retailers should prioritize for long-term value
And be sure to check out the ‘IDC TechScape: Frictionless CX-Enabling Technologies in Retail, 2025’ report to unlock detailed insights on retail technology trends and discover how AWS Retail Solutions can help you implement these innovations today.
#aws #retailai #edgecomputing #agenticai #futureofretail #StoreInnovation #retailtechnology #omnichannel #SmartStores #customerexperience
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Transcript
Foreigning us now for five insightful minutes is Justin Swagler.
Speaker A:Justin is the worldwide head of physical retail for aws.
Speaker A:Justin, let's start with this.
Speaker A:I imagine I know the answer to this question based on your title, but given the rise of e commerce and digital shopping habits, do physical stores still matter?
Speaker B:The unequivocal answer is yes.
Speaker B:Physical stores still matter.
Speaker B:For all retailers across all segments and geographies.
Speaker B:What we're seeing is at least 80%, if not more of retail sales are happening physical stores.
Speaker B:But what we're seeing is kind of a store renaissance.
Speaker B:You know, during the days of the pandemic, retailers had focused so much on their investments in new technologies for digital and mobile shopping, but now they're relooking at their physical stores.
Speaker B:And how do I unify the journey from online into the physical world and creating that connected, holistic experience for their consumers, as well as investing in optimizing their operations and workforce efficiency?
Speaker B:Overall, retailers are really looking at how do I deliver that efficient shopping experience and provide the digital tools and capabilities to improve the operations.
Speaker C:What technologies are the ones that retailers need to be focused on then for their stores to succeed?
Speaker B:Yeah, there's, there's a lot of different approaches and, and the way that we're working with customers and as we think about it, is kind of three key strategies or pillars.
Speaker B:So first is around edge.
Speaker B:You know, retailers and physical stores, they may have hundreds or thousands of distributed physical locations, but in order to deploy new technologies, they need to balance what do I do in the cloud versus what do I do?
Speaker B:And edge hardware, servers.
Speaker B:And so being able to have a more modern edge versus cloud strategy helps provide the right infrastructure and those capabilities to deploy those new services.
Speaker B:Second, we're starting to also see more advancements in areas like computer vision and IoT or other advanced workloads in stores.
Speaker B:So being able to understand consumer behavior with existing cameras in store, to understand where do they go, where you do, what areas of the store are they looking at and what do they end up transacting from there and then unifying those data and capabilities in order to really get that enhanced overall operational and consumer view within the physical stores.
Speaker C:So, Justin, what would your advice be then?
Speaker C:To make sure that retailers are consistently reinventing the customer experience, but then also balancing that with optimizing operational costs and efficiency.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So a lot of it is starting to look at the connective tissue.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I hear from a lot of, I have all these in store technologies.
Speaker B:How do I stitch them together?
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:And really to be able to advance and to provide that efficiency and experience.
Speaker B:You got to really start to connect and unify those data sources and then start to bring in some of the AI and agentic capabilities from there to connect those sources.
Speaker B:And that's where really the future of stores is going to go is.
Speaker B:You know, as events get triggered, whether it's through cameras or inventory or checkout lines, how do I automate the workflow to provide that great experience or to ensure my staff are doing the right tasks and the right work when they need to do it at that right time?
Speaker A:Gotcha.
Speaker A:I wasn't expecting the agentic AI drop there, but I'm always open to hear more about it.
Speaker A:So let's get you out of here on this then.
Speaker A:So if I take a longer term vision, what do retailers need to take action on now to, to drive more value for their customers in the future?
Speaker B:Yeah, so once you kind of set up the edge and you bring in some of those advanced kind of applications and workloads, you stitch that together and I believe we're going to be creating agentic stores where it's going to be a lot of automation and orchestration of key events and workloads that need to happen.
Speaker B:Now this is not, you know, to say it's impacting staffing levels in stores, but it's helping to drive high value interactions and work for workforce and stores that, that lead to better experience.
Speaker B:So I'm sure you've been to like a QSR restaurant and the ice cream machine is out or you go to the store and that inventory is off the shelf.
Speaker B:Typically it's very manual for it to be addressed.
Speaker B:Once you unify that data and you start to bring in agentic capabilities, I can now automate that.
Speaker B:So if an equipment's broken, get that ticket to address it.
Speaker B:If there's items out of the stock, let's reorder the inventory automatically.
Speaker B:Let's get the task assigned to get the workforce to restock it.
Speaker B:Let's, let's remove it from any mobile ordering for pickup and store, et cetera.
Speaker B:So those are the types of things we need to think about for retailers to be able to deploy those types of capabilities in 5, 10, 15 years down the line.
Speaker A:Geez, Chelsea, you just blew my mind.
Speaker A:Oh my God.
Speaker A:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:Thanks Justin.
