Retail Brands Want to Make Sales Associates Shine in AI’s Spotlight

Artificial intelligence, long touted as the magic ingredient that can bring a personal touch to a retail shopper’s experience, is also being directed at improving the experience of humans working in physical retail stores, according to several big-brand presenters at NRF’25, the annual conference of the National Retail Federation.

At multiple sessions at NRF’25 in the Javits Center in New York City on January 13, retail executives discussed ways they are boosting sales via personalized customer experiences, in part by improving the experience of front-of-house sales associates in stores.

Personalization has in the past generally meant figuring out what items might be attractive to a customer, or tailoring goods or services to suit their specific dimensions, preferences or needs. Now, personalization also means providing a sense of relationship with sales staff, as representatives of brands.

Certainly, there is still plenty of activity around product recommendations, as demonstrated by Greg Pulsifer, senior vice president of e-commerce for Sam’s Club, which benefits from its membership model, allowing it to gather huge amounts of data about shoppers’ tastes and habits. “We know 100% of our members,” said Pulsifer. “We can use that to tailor marketing messages.”

But now, there’s a growing focus on supporting sales associates with AI tools so that they’re freed up to do the more fun parts of their job. For example, Target in August, 2024 announced the introduction of its Store Companion, a chatbot that uses generative AI (GenAI) to answer on-the-job process questions, coach new team members, su…