At the Retail Technology Show (RTS) 2026, Retail Systems asked chief executives to summarise their on-stage discussions for those who were unable to attend, and for what piece of technology they felt would shape their industry the most in the year to come.

Listen to the whole conversation here, or read on for curated insights.


Archie Norman, Chief executive at M&S – “you can’t opt out anymore”

Retail is hundreds of years old, Norman says, and many things haven’t changed a lot over that time. “We employ 40,000 colleagues who serve customers and put product on shelves,” he tells Retail Systems. “You would think that retail was the last of the industries to be impacted by AI and technology, but now it’s everywhere.”

“Every retail leader needs to be a technology leader. You can’t opt out anymore.”
The growth of RTS itself reflects that, Norman says. “Ten years ago, I don’t think this show existed. If it did, it was probably in a space 10 per cent of what it is today. Now, it’s huge.”

For M&S itself, Norman sees three technologies evolving over the coming year. The first is personalisation. “We want to talk to each of our customers as an individual, not as a segment. If you’re not interested in women’s clothing, we should never send you an email about it.

“If you’ve got children who are going back to school, we should be able to talk to you about school uniforms. If you return something because it didn’t fit, we should say, ‘can we give you something that does?’ The objective is not about sales or promotions; it’s about making shopping easier.”

The relaunch of M&S’s loyalty scheme Sparks, and the AI technology underpinning it, are a vital part of this, Norman adds.

The second technology that Norman expects will evolve his business is knowledge-based AI systems. “When executives come in on Monday morning, they’re no longer looking at pages and pages of reports; they’re asking Copilot to summarise the performance.”

Technology is also impacting security at the company, driven by a rise in shoplifting since the pandemic. M&S has already added intelligent checkouts and camera networks network that operate in-between stores to monitor and identify repeat offenders. “It’s not intrusive,” Norman added.

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