Shoptalk Spring 2026: What We Saw, Heard, and Learned

The Speed of Product Discovery Today

For the first time ever, IWD had a booth at Shoptalk Spring 2026 in Las Vegas and it was a whirlwind! With over 10,000 attendees from across the retail industry packed into one space, the energy was electric. Between booth conversations, sessions, and a few walks around the exhibit hall, one theme made itself impossible to ignore: AI.

AI Was Everywhere.

It didn't matter which direction you turned at Shoptalk — AI was part of the conversation. Brands, retailers, and vendors alike are all trying to figure out how to harness it, and fast. Nearly every exhibitor we stopped to chat with on the floor had at least one AI-powered feature baked into their product. One exhibitor I spoke to, Contentsquare, a digital ecommerce analytics platform that uses AI to help businesses optimize their websites for better user experience and higher conversions — had plans to roll out predictive analytics capabilities powered by AI next.

The question we kept getting asked at our own booth? How is IWD incorporating AI? Fair question, and one we were glad to answer. (Spoiler: it's coming in 2026, and we're building it the right way, on top of 25+ years of merchandising expertise.)

Physical Retail Still Has Its Champions. 

While a lot of the buzz at Shoptalk leaned heavily toward ecommerce, it was refreshing to see that physical retail wasn't an afterthought. A handful of brands and retailers who stopped by our booth were still very much focused on their brick-and-mortar spaces — and those were some of our best conversations of the week.

Niraj Shah, Co-Founder and CEO of Wayfair, put into words something a lot of us in the industry feel but don't always articulate well. He talked about the importance of brands adapting their retail locations by market, based on how their specific customers actually want to shop. His take: winning brands aren't just optimizing channels, they're designing flexible, human-centered experiences that reflect how people actually live and engage today.

That idea of intentionality really stuck with me. It's not about doing more, it's about doing the right things in the right places. 

It was a good reminder that the in-store experience isn't going anywhere. If anything, the pressure to make it better is higher than ever.

Overall…

If there's one thing Shoptalk 2026 reinforced, it's that the role of visual merchandising is becoming more strategic, not less. As AI starts to reshape how brands analyze performance and make decisions, the teams who will win are the ones who pair that technology with real expertise — knowing why something works in a store, not just that it does.

The future of retail is human-centered and data-informed. For visual merchandisers, that's actually a pretty exciting place to be.