Retail in America

If AI decides who gets found, what happens to the independent store with the best people in town? New research Lightspeed commissioned from Vaer AI found that AI recommends big retailers over local businesses 9 out of 10 times. More than half of shoppers have already used AI to help decide what to buy. For a lot of people, the first store they visit is now a chat window, and it shows the big names...

Every January, hundreds of solution providers walk into the Javits Center to sell to retailers. Most don't understand how a retailer actually buys. Most retailers don't understand how a vendor has to sell. Vicki Cantrell has sat in almost every seat in this industry. She was CIO at Gucci Group and Giorgio Armani, the person tech vendors had to sell to. She was COO at Tory Burch through 300% global...

Blake Devillier thought he'd work at the Gap for six weeks. He needed a summer job. He stayed twenty-eight years. What changed everything was one sentence from an acting district manager named Julia: if you were interested in building a career in leadership, I think that could happen. That conversation put Blake on a path through Gap, Banana Republic, and Old Navy — finishing as Territory Vice Pre...

Somewhere between 50 and 70% of people who walk into a store leave without buying anything. Eighty percent of them walked in with an AI-generated answer already in their pocket. Juan Molina built his career on the moment before that — 3D product visualization at Cylindo and Chaos, making a product look convincing on a screen. Now, at Rallyware, he works the moment after: the ten seconds when a rea...

AI can write an email that sounds exactly like you. It can personalize at a scale no sales team ever could. And that is precisely why the inbox stopped working. When every message sounds human, none of them get read. Eric Aubertin, founder and CEO of truelynk ( https://truelynk.com ), has built his sixth company on the one thing buyers still trust: a warm introduction from someone they know. Eric'...

S3E4 — Balance Is Bullsh*t: Cut Your Life From 25 Things to 5 with Loretta Soffe Retail in America · Season 3: The Human Edge of Selling She pulled into her driveway with her hands still on the wheel and couldn't get out of the car. Inside the house: three kids, a husband who had paused his legal career for what they thought would be one year and became twelve. Outside: the title, the corner offic...

The Human Edge, Amplified — with Tulsi Keshkamat (Microsoft Teams for Frontline) What if the technology to transform your frontline already exists — and you're already paying for it? In this episode of RETAIL IN AMERICA, sponsored by Microsoft, Ron Thurston sits down with Tulsi Keshkamat to unpack one of retail's biggest blind spots: the gap between what frontline technology can do and what most r...

The entire retail sales-training industry is built on scripts and closing techniques. Daria Tcherkachina threw both out — and built a career proving they were never the point. In this episode, Daria and Ron make the case that customer service is the most underrated revenue strategy in retail, and that the human standing on your floor is the asset most businesses are quietly wasting. Daria's 22 yea...

The more we shop with algorithms and let AI agents shape our decisions, the more valuable one thing becomes: a human who actually knows how to sell . That is the thesis of Season 3 — and there is no better person to open the conversation than Ben Rodier . Ben is the CEO and co-founder of FrontlineIQ.ai and a repeat entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience building sales technology, inclu...

EPISODE 21 — How to Stand Out as a Candidate When Everyone Uses AI Special Series: The Human Edge in the Job Market (Part 4 of 6) In 2024, Insight Global surveyed over a thousand U.S. hiring managers and found that 88% can tell when a candidate is using AI in their application. One in five recruiters say they would reject a fully AI-generated resume or cover letter outright. And industry estimates...

EPISODE 20 — From Facts to Impact: The Art of Storytelling in Interviews Special Series: The Human Edge in the Job Market (Part 3 of 6) The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 surveyed over a thousand companies and found that 39% of workers’ core skills will change by 2030. But the skills employers say are most essential right now — analytical thinking, resilience, leadership and soc...

EPISODE 19 — Empowering Your Job Search: Three Essential Questions Special Series: The Human Edge in the Job Market (Part 2 of 6) Job applicants in 2025 were 12% less likely to reject a job offer than they were in 2023. People are taking jobs right now that — two years ago — they would have walked away from. Not because the jobs got better. Because the people got more scared. In Part 2 of The Huma...

EPISODE 18 — The Three Edges You Already Have Special Series: The Human Edge in the Job Market (Part 1 of 6) Right now, more than 28 million people have the Open to Work banner on LinkedIn. If you're one of them — or you're thinking about turning it on — this episode is for you. Over the next six episodes, Ron walks through the edges you already have in a job market being rebuilt around technology...

Episode Summary Retail didn't have a middle management problem. It had a leadership investment problem — and solved it the fastest and worst way possible. In this episode, Ron breaks down what actually happens when you eliminate the manager: the floor walks stop, the conversations stop, and the people who make your strategy real disappear. Three human truths about retail, technology, and the peopl...

Episode 16: Compliance Is Not Development Your training is working. Your people are still leaving. In this episode of Retail in America , Ron Thurston breaks down the critical difference between completing a training module and actually developing a frontline worker. Through the story of DeShawn — a high-performing associate who left for a two-dollar raise because he couldn't see a path forward —...

Episode 15: The Happiness Report & Retail The World Happiness Report 2026 was just published. 136 countries. Hundreds of thousands of respondents. Decades of data. And buried inside it is something every retail executive needs to sit with. In the United States, young people are dramatically less happy than they were fifteen years ago. The primary driver? The same platforms your customers used...

Gen Z is walking into your stores on purpose. They came for connection, community, and a human experience they can’t get from a screen. The question is whether the people you hired are ready to meet them. Most retail job descriptions were written for a store that no longer exists. In this episode, Ron Thurston explores what the experience economy actually demands from your frontline — and what the...

62% of Gen Z shops in physical stores — more than any generation before them. They came for community, connection, and a human moment. And the industry’s response is to automate the experience that brought them there. This episode examines why Gen Z is choosing physical retail, what they actually need when they walk in, and what winning retailers are doing to meet them there. THE THREE HUMAN TRUTH...

Forrester Research is calling this moment ‘peak ambiguity.’ Rising bankruptcies. Falling consumer sentiment. Geopolitical uncertainty. And when strategy is unclear at the top — it’s the frontline that absorbs it first. Every time. In this episode, Ron Thurston breaks down three human truths about what retail’s peak ambiguity is really costing your people — and how the right investment right now cr...

65% of consumers trust AI to compare prices. Only 14% trust it to place an order on their behalf. We’re in the most aggressive AI deployment cycle in retail history — and most customers don’t trust it where it matters most. In this episode, Ron Thurston breaks down three human truths about the trust gap between AI technology and the frontline workers and customers caught in between. Three Human Tr...

Retail turnover is running at 81% annually. Everyone in the boardroom knows it. Nobody is treating it like the emergency it actually is. In this solo episode, Ron Thurston breaks down three human truths about what’s really driving frontline employee turnover in retail — and why solving it has nothing to do with pay. Three Human Truths This Episode HUMAN TRUTH #1 — Everyone Knows. Nobody’s Treating...

American companies spent more than a trillion dollars on technology last year. More than 60% saw no meaningful impact on their bottom line. The reason isn’t the technology. It’s who we keep forgetting to invest in first. In this episode, Ron Thurston breaks down three human truths about AI, retail, and the frontline workers caught in between. Three Human Truths This Episode HUMAN TRUTH #1 — The In...

What happens when AI isn’t built for people—but with them? In this episode of Retail Intelligence in Action , sponsored by Microsoft, Ron Thurston sits down with Dave Glick , Senior Vice President of Enterprise Business Services at Walmart , for a rare inside look at one of the most ambitious, people-led AI transformations happening anywhere in retail. Dave shares how Walmart is building AI capabi...

Voices from the Frontline: AI in Action: Episode 2, Part 2 In this episode of Voices from the Frontline: AI in Action , host Ron Thurston takes listeners inside the Microsoft Experience Center in New York City , where frontline work, customer experience, and AI-powered tools come together in real time. Recorded on the retail floor at the Microsoft Experience Center , this conversation goes behind...

Retail Intelligence in Action — Microsoft | Episode 2, part 1 A Limited Series with Ron Thurston In this episode of Retail Intelligence in Action , host Ron Thurston takes listeners inside the Microsoft Experience Center in New York City to explore what frontline work looks like when AI is applied with intention, empathy, and clarity. This conversation brings AI out of theory and onto the sales fl...