Proving AI ROI, Agentic commerce, pilot purgatory, and a project called Do Not Replace Bob, live from Shoptalk Fall with Perficient.

64% of retail and consumer leaders don’t have reliable data on their own AI ROI. That’s from Perficient’s new 2026 State of the Industry report, built on a survey of 50 director-level and above leaders, and it’s the exact question boards are about to ask every retail CEO.

Recorded live and in person at Shoptalk Fall in Nashville, Ricardo sits down with Brandon Rael and Rupa Amin from Perficient to get past the stage talk on agentic commerce and into what it takes to turn AI activity into business results you can prove.

They start with the invisible lost sale: when a consumer’s AI shopping agent passes over your product, there’s no abandoned cart, no bounce rate, and no trail. Rupa explains why B2B buyers who research with AI still want a rep, and how that changes the rep’s job. Then the conversation turns to AI ROI itself: why so many projects can’t be measured, why almost half of leaders are funding AI in the wrong order, and how a Perficient project earned the name “Do Not Replace Bob.”

What you’ll learn in this episode.

• What the invisible lost sale is, and why agentic commerce makes it so hard to see.
• Why AI-referred traffic growth (393%, per Adobe) matters even with about 85% of retail sales still in stores.
• How B2B buyers use AI for product discovery and what they still want from a sales rep.
• Why AI ROI is so hard to prove when the baseline process isn’t the one people actually follow.
• Why Brandon says a weak data foundation means “the house is gonna fall down the hill”.
• How private label’s record 23.8% unit share ties to AI product discovery.
• Why one accountable owner gets AI projects out of pilot mode faster than a committee
• The one thing Rupa says to start this quarter, before the board asks what your AI spend delivered

Support Our Sponsor.
Perficient.
State of the Industry: Retail & Consumerreport. https://go.retailrazor.com/Perficient
Powered by 7,000+ advisors, engineers, and designers, Perficient implements AI-first solutions that break conventions and deliver outcomes that matter. Proudly serving clients that represent the world’s most innovative brands, and in collaboration with our powerful technology partner ecosystem, Perficient brings deep industry expertise and data-driven design to redefine how businesses run and succeed.

Insights from 50 retail and consumer decision makers in Perficient’s State of the Industry: Retail & Consumer report reveal what makes the difference between the leaders and laggards responding to challenges with AI adoption, investment, and execution. In addition, the report explores how the leaders are approaching emerging trends shaping the future of retail, including agentic commerce, where AI increasingly influences how customers discover products, make decisions, and complete transactions. Explore the research.
 
Subscribe & Follow.

Love this episode? Drop us a five-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Goodpods. Don’t forget to like and subscribe to The Retail Razor: Data Blades for more episodes on customer experience, retail marketing, AI in retail, and data‑driven transformation!

Subscribe to the Retail Razor Podcast Network: https://retailrazor.com/
Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://retailrazor.substack.com
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:https://go.retailrazor.com/utube

About Our Guests.
Brandon Rael. https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandonrael/
Director, Retail and Consumer Strategy, Perficient.
Brandon Rael is a Director and Retail Strategist at Perficient and a strategic commerce and Agentic AI commercialization executive. He started his career as a merchant and planner, learning every aspect of retail from the ground up. That operator foundation makes him a different kind of advisor and has shaped everything he has accomplished since.

Brandon advises Fortune 100 companies, private equity-backed brands, and leading retailers on enterprise transformation, AI-enabled growth, merchandising, supply chain, and customer experience. Combining operator, advisor and go-to-market leadership experience, he helps organizations modernize operating models and turn emerging AI capabilities into scalable, adoption-ready solutions. His work consistently delivers measurable business outcomes in revenue growth, EBITDA improvements, cost optimization, and enterprise value creation across retail, grocery, luxury, wholesale, and consumer industries.

Rupa Amin. https://www.linkedin.com/in/rupaamin/
Senior Director, Retail & Consumer Strategy, Perficient.
Rupa Amin is Sr. Director of Strategy for the Retail & Consumer Goods practice at Perficient. With over 20 years in commerce spanning manufacturing, distribution, and retail, she helps retail organizations build technology strategies that connect what happens in stores, warehouses, and digital channels to measurable business outcomes.

Rupa specializes in guiding retailers through complex, multi-platform landscapes from order management and product data to customer experience and fulfillment with a focus on what actually works operationally, not just what demos well. Her current areas of focus include AI-driven commerce, inventory and pricing optimization, customer data strategy, and the evolving role of digital in physical retail.

In 2024, she was recognized by Consulting Magazine with the Excellence in Client Service award. Rupa is an active advocate for women in consulting.

Chapters.

(00:00) “We’re Not Sure If It Helped”: Retail’s AI Spend Problem

(00:37) 64% of Retail Leaders Can’t Prove Their AI ROI

(03:25) Live at Shoptalk Fall: Turning AI Activity Into Results

(06:08) The Invisible Lost Sale: When AI Shopping Agents Skip You

(09:20) Why B2B Buyers Still Want a Sales Rep in the AI Era

(13:16) Do Not Replace Bob: The Hidden Baseline Killing Your ROI

(16:27) Half of Leaders Are Funding AI in the Wrong Order

(20:23) Private Label Is Surging: Can AI Even Find Your Product?

(23:11) Escaping Pilot Purgatory: Ownership Beats Committees

(27:46) The One Thing to Do Monday Morning Before the Board Asks

(31:01) Show Close

About your Hosts.
Helping you cut through the clutter in retail data insights:

Ricardo Belmar is an NRF Top Retail Voice for 2025 and a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2021 – 2026. Thinkers 360 has named him a Top 10 Thought Leader in Retail and eCommerce, a Top 25 Thought LeaderinCareers, a Top 50 Thought Leader in Agentic AI, AGI and Management, and a Top 100 Thought Leader in AI Ethics, Marketing, Digital Transformation andTransformation. Thinkers 360 also named him a Top Digital Voice for 2024 and 2025. He is an advisory council member at George Mason University’s Center for Retail Transformation and the Retail Cloud Alliance. He was most recently the partner marketing leader for retail & consumer goods in the Americas at Microsoft.

Casey Golden, is the North America Leader for Retail & Consumer Goods at CI&T, and CEO of Luxlock. She is a RETHINK Retail Top Retail Expert from 2023 – 2026, and Retail Cloud Alliance advisory council member. After a career on the fashion and supply chain technology side of the business, Casey is obsessed with the customer relationship between the brand and the consumer and is slaying franken-stacks and building retail tech! 

Music.

Includes music provided by imunobeats.com, featuring Tech Lore from the album Beat Hype, written by Heston Mimms, published by Imuno.