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tation into day-to-day operations.

Unlike traditional analytic tools, agentic AI is built to plan, act and learn on its own. In merchandising, that could let retailers adjust prices, fine-tune promotions and rebalance product assortments in near real time, replacing the static weekly or monthly review cycles that still dominate many organisations, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Co.

“Historically, the merchant role requires spending critical time and energy on manual, repetitive tasks,” it said in a January report.

“By offloading it to AI agents, merchants could reclaim up to 40% of their time to do what they do best: focus on strategy, find great products, understand customers, and optimise vendor negotiations,” it added.

Yet most retailers are not ready to deploy the technology at scale.