In Barcelona 4,500 European retail leaders discussed AI choosing on behalf of the customer. Here is what changes.
Shoptalk Europe 2026 closed in Barcelona on 12 June after three days with over 4,500 retailers, brands, technology providers, investors and startups, and more than 25,000 arranged business meetings.
The dominant theme: agentic commerce
Almost every session came back to the same question: who owns the customer relationship when an AI mediates product discovery? European retailers accept automated assistants but refuse to give up the human factor.
Data, trust and discovery
The consensus was clear: without clean product data you do not exist inside AI-generated answers. Titles, attributes, availability and prices must be accurate and consistent across every channel.
What we advise our clients
Three concrete actions: fix the catalogue with complete, structured attributes; make information readable to answer engines; and nurture the direct customer relationship through email and community, the only channel no algorithm can take away.
Conclusions
European retail is in a deep transformation. The winners are those with better data, a clearer brand and tighter operations: the fundamentals, once again.
CEO & Co-Founder of BusinessLabs. I have attended major international trade shows since 2015 and share here experiences and insights for online sellers.
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