[00:00:00] Hi everyone, Lauren here from the Digital Shelf Institute with a bonus episode of Unpacking the Digital Shelf. This will bring you interviews from Grocery Shop 2026 where I chatted with Andrea Leigh and Matt Van Gilder about themes around the conference and what we think for the rest of the year. Enjoy!
[00:00:34] Happy first day of Grocery Shop. Happy first day of Grocery Shop. Did you have any travel issues getting here? I did, but honestly it was more on me than the airlines. I feel like this is a story that maybe we should hear. Apparently they take the like checked baggage cut off very seriously. Oh no, Matt. So I did that to myself. Oh geez. Well, at least you got here. I did. I was late to my own happy hour last night, but you know, it was... But you made it. Yes. You made it. Well, thank you for talking to me at Grocery Shop. Of course.
[00:01:04] So let's start with what is your best takeaway from Grocery Shop so far? All right. Well, we're not even at the end of day one. So I think so far, and we'll have to do another one maybe in a couple days if I change my answer. No problem. So my takeaway so far is looking at the content already today and the content that's ahead is everything is around practicality. And I think the retailers are saying, give us what we want.
[00:01:32] And that is usable information, usable case studies, like real life examples that allow them to actually go back next week and start making a difference in their operations and how they're talking to their customers. I mean, we're looking at right now the case study stage that's all about real life case studies. So I'm seeing a very like purposeful lean in from the grocery shop team on like, how do we get like real useful information in front of the retailers?
[00:01:59] I also think the brands and retailers are craving that, right? Because we've been talking about the hype of AI and everything that's going on for so long. But it's like, show me the real ROI that's coming out of this. Yeah, you can theoretically do anything with AI and you can apply that same theoretically. I can do anything to like many functions. And that's part of the problem is it's so overwhelming. It's like, where do I even begin? What do I do? Who do I work with? What technology should I use?
[00:02:25] So being able to go to a session and actually hear how a regional retailers really using and implementing AI and how it is making a difference and where they're actually learning and bumping their head. That's my favorite part, honestly, about going to case studies is learning like where mistakes are made. And it requires a little vulnerability from the retailers, but those that are willing to do it actually are helping like bring like raise all boats, if you will. So being able to get that information, I think, is super helpful. And it's clear that that's a big theme so far.
[00:02:55] I hear value when you say that, right? Like a theme of what is the value that AI or these technologies or anything we're doing is driving to move the business forward, right? Would you agree? I would. Yeah. And I mean, that's every retailer's decision at the end of the day is what is right for the customer. And that comes down to like, is this valuable? Is it valuable for the customer or is it valuable for my internal teams and associates in some way to make it more valuable for my customer?
[00:03:22] So, yeah, it does come down to whether or not this can really provide value. Are we chasing the next shiny object? Which I think in the past there has been a lot of focus on theoretical and like where this could go in five or ten years, which is good. We need to keep an eye on the future, but it's very much like we got to make decisions and we have to react right now. This moment needs to count. Yes. And we need to anchor it on the consumer. I love that. Totally agree. Okay. So what are some of the key themes that you're seeing so far, even on the agenda and the sessions that are happening? Well, we've already talked about one.
[00:03:52] Yes. Which is AI, agentic, everything. It seems like that is growing in importance in the way vendors are going to market and how they message everything that they're offering to the retailers, which is great. Well said. I love all of my vendor partners here, but it seems like everybody's AI and offers something in AI now, which is true because it is getting its tentacles into everything. I think that's fair.
[00:04:17] But again, it's like how do we help distill that down for the retailers to understand what they actually need and what they don't need? And because if everything's AI, then now you've got to manage AI seven different ways. So that's one big theme is AI and how that that is layering into existing partnerships that retailers already have. And on the other side, how new AI comes in and whether it's a disruption, a distraction or actually is adding value.
[00:04:44] The other thing is, is I'm seeing a resurgence in retail media. It's never went away. It's been a big focus here at grocery shop for several years now, but it seems like this year the focus on in store retail media activation, the presence there has also been elevated.
[00:05:03] And I think that the excitement around retail media initially was the, you know, like the beauty of having a network where you could go to one place and activate a campaign and it turned on across all these different channels and kind of just worked. You didn't have to like ad hoc manage all these different things like shop for marketing was 10 years ago, which is true. But those digital channels were pretty limited to off site, on site things outside of the store.
[00:05:31] And marketers know that still one of the best places to reach a customer and change their behavior is like in the moment of purchase, which a majority of that is still happening in the store. So we're seeing a lot of activity, a lot of sessions around how to bring retail media to life in store, a lot of vendors talking about how they can bring retail media to life in store. And by the way, it's not just like in-store signage, like digital signs that can be at the shelf or on end caps. That's all really cool.
[00:05:57] I think that is helpful to tell the story and really like in an omni channel sense drive a campaign, but it doesn't all have to be digital. Like printed in-store signs still work pretty well. And caps still work really well. Exactly. And merchant like the, the merchants, the CPGs are still willing to pay a lot of money for the in-store. Right. So I think the kind of that being the centerpiece of a lot of retail media is coming back into play. And that's like a, that's a kind of going back to our roots and sticking with what works to a certain degree.
[00:06:27] But I think it's a good thing. Well, you now have to worry about the physical, the digital and the agentic shelf. Yes. And the physical shelf actually, Gen Z likes to go in store. They want to have experiences and a lot more traffic is going back to the physical store and never left. Right. Yeah. So like how are we creating different experiences, even with audio? Yes. There's been a lot of people talking about audio in-store. In-store audio and the advancements there and like how you can actually track the difference that like the, the change in behavior that the in-store audio is actually having on the customer.
[00:06:55] That used to be so difficult, but now the in-store audio providers getting super sophisticated to be able to dial it into exactly when the customer's there and then back to the transaction, understand where they in the store or when it played or not. And you actually start to see a huge ROI there, which before it was kind of like, cool, just play the music and play an ad maybe once or twice an hour and just see what happens. But now it's very granular and measurable. And of course that's what the retailers and the brands want. I love the ROI out of that. Back to value. Okay. So I'm putting you on the spot here. So get ready.
[00:07:25] I mean, if you have. This has all been on the spot. That's a secret. No one's supposed to know that. No, I'm kidding. So, okay. If you had one question that you want retailers to answer for this year, what would it be? One question. Yeah. So like just something that they need to focus on or change or something about the consumer experience. Like what would, what's one question that you wish retailers would be able to answer?
[00:07:50] I wish that the retailers today internally for their own use could answer more holistically what's happening with their customer across all these channels we were just talking about. I know I had a, I struggle with that as a retailer myself being able to stitch together like a unified picture of like what's happening with a customer because we talk about how great Ami Channel is and how the customer can shop whenever they want, however they want.
[00:08:18] There's a million different touch points now, but it's not as useful and it's not nearly as helpful if you can't see how that customer is kind of freely and fluidly moving from one to the other because they are doing that. The customer is not thinking about it and like, oh, today I'm going to do curbside fulfillment and I'm going to use this shopping platform. And they're just like, I need my groceries. I don't even know what that means. Yeah. I want my box of cereal from DoorDash today. Like that's how I want it. Tomorrow I'm going to go to the store to get my peanut butter.
[00:08:45] Like they're just like, what do they need in the moment depending on if the kids are home, if the kids are sick, if they're at school, if their spouse is traveling, whatever, they're always doing something different. And I think the retailers have a hard time keeping up with that and how the customer is actually moving around from touch point to touch point and they're missing out on insights that they can unlock about how the way they're behaving on one channel actually should inform back to the way that they need to like then communicate with that customer in the store. Vice versa, how they're acting in the store should change how they communicate online.
[00:09:13] So I think that's a tough thing to unpack and answer, but like I want to see more retails be able to answer that holistic like customer behavior question. And I think they have to in this world and brands want that too. Right. Because if you don't know how they connect, how you're going to know what the next best action is and what's actually moving the needle. Yes. The next best action. And that feels very we've all operated that way, I think, historically, but like that's a new label and it's very like a ish label of like what's the next best action?
[00:09:43] Like that's always what we've been trying to figure out, but we never called it that. But I think it is kind of cool that we're saying that now because that just makes it like it kind of dumbs down what we're doing, I think in a good way. It's like simplifies. All right. Thank you. It sounds a little bit more correct. But yeah, it's just like, OK, what what are we doing here in this meeting? Yeah, we're just trying to figure out what is what do we need to do next to improve X, Y or Z? And I think that thinking about that way like helps because it just like everything we've just been talking about.
[00:10:11] So overcomplicated by nature and like we kind of get lost in the sauce all the time. And it's like sometimes we just yes, everything's hyped up. You got to do this. Everything's urgent. It's like, no, we're just like, how do we get this one more item in the basket? That's what we're trying to do here. And make the best experience for consumers at the end of the day. That's what we all need to anchor on. Amazing. Thanks so much, Matt. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Thanks, everyone. Hey, Andrea. How's it going? Hi, Lauren. How are you? Good. I saw you all throughout the conference, which was great.
[00:10:41] I know you're my conference buddy. Yeah. And your session was great. So is yours. Thank you. Thank you. So is yours. Thank you for doing this. I'm happy to. I love talking about shopping. It's like my favorite thing. Yeah. A hundred percent. And there's a lot going on the past couple of days. There is a lot going on. I would say this is like a pretty announcement chock full grocery shop. Yeah. Lots transpired in the last year after. I mean, I think it was like a year or two ago. It was like, I feel like we keep hearing the same thing every year. And then now we're not. Not anymore. Not anymore.
[00:11:10] Not anymore. So we are going to talk about top themes. Top themes. That we've heard. Yes. So I'll let you go first and then I'll do mine. What's your first one? Okay. My first one is I think that the concept of the digital shelf needs redefining. Yes. Yeah. And I want to hear like, I think it would be great if you talked a little bit about your session and because you address this head on. But I think we've been defining the digital shelf as PDPs on retailer websites.
[00:11:38] And that is that it's too limited. And with AgenteCommerce, I think the digital definition of the digital shelf needs to be expanded to include really anywhere that your product information is showing up online, which includes social. It includes Reddit. It includes YouTube. I mean, the all of the agents are using all of the includes your DTC site, most importantly, because I think that's the one that we have brands have the most control over.
[00:12:05] But, you know, the other day I was shopping Alexa for shopping and it returned a YouTube video to me as the answer to one of my questions about the product. And it was not a YouTube video that was produced by the brand. And so really, when we think about the digital shelf, I think we need to be thinking about all these touch points. I don't really know how to scale all of that yet, but there are some really clear places to start.
[00:12:28] And you talked about those in your session. So that's that's my first big one is that we are we are really too narrow in our definite definition. And that I think winning brands are really have already been thinking about those areas and and winning brands have been thinking, you know, obviously about social most small to midsize brands I work with are they have more of their investment going there than they do like Amazon retail media, for example.
[00:12:55] But I think also they've been a lot of those brands have been establishing relationships with their consumers through forums like Reddit and YouTube and gaining followings there. And so they're already primed for the for agentic commerce. And so I think a lot of more established brands kind of have to like play catch up now. No, I 100 percent agree with you. This is a big part of my talk today. It was your whole talk. It was very much so. I mean, the entrance of a new shelf we have the physical shelf, the digital shelf.
[00:13:22] Now we have the agentic shelf and the digital shelf in the agentic shelf are very, very much tied together. The fundamentals of the digital shelf fuel the agentic shelf. And that's why I like to tell people to take a deep breath, because there is a lot of change around A.I. But the fact of the matter is, if you've been doing the digital shelf, brilliant basics, the brilliant basics for the past X number of years, you are set up for success. Yeah. And I agree with you. The definition needs to be much broader. It is the entire Internet. Yeah. It is all the places that someone can research, find or buy your product.
[00:13:51] And that can be on The New York Times. It can be on a list. Absolutely. It can be on your brand dot com. The agents are like largely ignoring major retailers and Amazon's even blocking a lot of that traffic. So if you think that you have good Amazon PDPs and that means you're going to show up in with an agent or agentic shopping off Amazon, you are probably wrong. And this is the time where the brand dot com gets a massive facelift. I talk about this a lot.
[00:14:15] I mean, usually that team is not connected in any way to the e-commerce team, but they need to be now because you own that. Yes. It is your content, your data. You can set it up. You can add FAQs. You can add reviews like that is something that's feeding the agents. And it's the authoritative source. Exactly. It's where the trust comes from. Yes. From a citation standpoint. And that needs to be a big focus. Absolutely. Amazing. I love that first one. Yeah. What did you got? So mine is that we're moving from more of a consumption to a curation type of environment.
[00:14:44] Interesting. OK. Where all of the experiences now need to be curated or another way to say that is personalized. So if you're shopping in store, what is the digital experience? Are there screens where you can engage with that retailer's agent to ask questions? Can you figure out where to purchase those products based on where the price tag is being highlighted to map out your specific shop? Are you creating experiences where there's influencers in store or there's a concert or something like that? That's kind of that infotainment that we've talked about in the past.
[00:15:14] Yeah. Because personalization is now much easier to do with agents. Yes. Think about it. It knows everything about you. It knows your history. It knows if you have a family or not. It knows if you're gluten free or not. It knows all that information. And so every recommendation it makes is personalized. So we're actually training consumers to want more curation. Yes. Versus more of the generic. Hey, here's a product and we don't know if it works for you, but you should buy it.
[00:15:38] So I think we're shifting more towards that world of curation, which requires more intention from the brands and understanding of who the consumer is. I would totally agree with that. Yeah. Yeah. I think another takeaway that I had is like very much tied to that, which is that the idea of on this idea of on site shopping agents on the retailer websites is becoming totally table stakes.
[00:16:01] And because shoppers are their expectations. Now that we can ask chat GPT anything and it knows like my health history and it, you know, and if I ask it, if I ask it like questions about an upcoming vacation, it already knows about my kids and how old they are. And like it already tailors like it's suggestions to my specific life. Um, we're expecting that from our retailers as well. And we're expecting that from their agents. And the idea of an on site agent, I think is now table stakes.
[00:16:28] And, but I think there's a lot of variability and this level of sophistication of the agents across the retailers. Like while we've been at this conference, we've heard about door dashes, um, cross plat, like cross retailer agent. Um, we got to hear a little bit about Clementine on Instacart. You know, we know about Alexa for shopping and Sparky. We heard about Kroger's. Um, and I got a chance to interact with all of them. I sat down for like an hour. I mean, I've used some of them, but I hadn't used, um, a couple of them.
[00:16:56] And, you know, I shop on Kroger regularly and I had never noticed the agent and as an example. And then when I asked it to do some of the things that the Instacart one sort of like did, um, proactively, it took several steps to get there. It was actually would have been just faster if I'd done it myself. Right. So there's a lot of variability.
[00:17:16] And I think that the, um, I think that the platforms like, and I'm particularly feeling really bullish on Instacart because their agent is really good. Um, super intuitive. They're a tech company, so they can move really fast, a lot faster than Kroger. And then they also, um, they're, they only really have to optimize it for one type of shopping experience, which is groceries. Whereas Amazon has to optimize for lots of product categories and customer service, et cetera.
[00:17:44] And, um, and DoorDash is going to have to, you know, they're, they're trying to do this sort of like cross agent thing. I just think that Instacart's really poised to win and they're already all about convenience. Like that's sort of their value proposition. So it, I think it ties really nicely with the brand. I love that point. It actually ties into one of my themes, which is the fact that your strategy for agents needs to be different based on the type of agent. Because to your point, there's, there's a wide gamut of what an agent actually means.
[00:18:12] Right. On the retailer site. And I kind of try to put it in two buckets and I've heard a lot of talk about this. It's the horizontal agents versus the vertical agents. So horizontals across the internet, like a chat GPT or a Gemini or a Claude. And then the vertical agent is like a Alexa for shopping, which is on that specific retailer or Kroger or Sparky. And a lot of people are talking about that, but I've put it in those buckets. Yeah. Because I think it's easier to kind of understand it in that way. But brands need to approach them very differently. Right. They do.
[00:18:40] Because Clementine is going to act incredibly differently than a Claude or a chat GPT. And what does the strategy need to be on each of those different types of agents? It's kind of like optimizing for different retailers, search algorithms. It's just, you have to learn a little bit. You have to test and learn. You have to, there's no playbook for this guys. No. So you just have to go in there, use the agent, ask it questions about your products, act like a shopper and see what the experience is like. And you'll quickly be able to reverse engineer what you need to do for your brand.
[00:19:10] Yeah. But I mean, I do, it's hard to believe that it was less than a year ago that I actually had built like my own browser plugin. I'm talking about grocery shopping. I hate grocery shopping. I have three teenagers. I have to buy so much food all the time. And it's gone in five seconds. It's gone in five seconds, the bane of my existence. And I built a little browser plugin to shop Kroger for me. I would give it a list and then I had it set up where it would like go search everything, add it all to cart.
[00:19:38] It would usually take about 10 or 15 minutes to complete the task because it's a lot of items. And now, you know, yesterday my experience with Instacart's Clementine is it's like one click. It's like add all my usuals, just add my usuals. And it's already in my cart and I don't have to do anything. That sounds lovely. I mean, the pace of innovation is so fast, right? And I'm just really excited to see where it goes. But I do think it means that brands really need to stay on their feet right now.
[00:20:07] Yeah. And it's a level of complexity, right? You think about the digital shelf. You need different types of content for most retailers. Now you need different types of content for different types of agents. The level of complexity is just so much higher than it's ever been. But it requires the brands to stay on top of what's happening to make sure they understand the strategy. Act like the shopper. Act like the shopper. Just go in there and act like the shopper. And play around. Yes. One thing that I was thinking about after one of the sessions today was with on-site agents,
[00:20:36] you know, you always hear that like impulse type products are really hard. Like you don't get quite the same attachment rate online as you do in-store. Cause like it's like point of sale and you just grab it. And it made me wonder if now we really have an opportunity for driving impulse purchases on, in agentic commerce on site. You know, maybe there's, there's probably, there's gotta be some opportunity there because the agent knows you, it knows your purchase history, it knows what you like. I love that.
[00:21:04] And, and it can upsell you, you know, probably can upsell you pretty well at the end of the shopping trip. So I don't know. That's just something I was thinking about. Someone needs to build something. That's interesting. Like if you're having a bad day and you're like talking to ChatGPT, it's like, you want some chocolate? You want some ice cream? I can get it delivered to your door in 15 minutes. You know what would make you feel better? Yes. 100% chocolate always. Okay. So let's talk about predictions. Okay.
[00:21:29] Let's each give one prediction of what we are thinking about for rest of this year, even into 27. Okay. Go for it. All right. I think that DoorDash and Instacart, well, I think they have quietly become much more than delivery platforms. And I think their value in the ecosystem is changing pretty quickly. And, you know, we often see them as delivery platforms, as consumers and as brands.
[00:21:56] But they're, they have, they have amassed a lot of data and they have a lot of services and solutions that they are selling to brands and retailers. And they, I mean, we all know they've been doing this, but there was a big push in a number of announcements today, both from Instacart and DoorDash about some of the products and services that are enterprise. And I think it's really interesting and smart of them to do that.
[00:22:18] So if you look at Instacart, for example, in their last earnings release, they are not, they had like a deceleration, a modest deceleration in their orders, number of orders. So still growing, but not growing as fast as it had been in the past. And, but, but what they did see was that orders got larger. And I think that's the consumer trying to save a little bit of money, right? Cause you don't pay the, if you stock up a little more or if you can save. Yeah. Then you don't have to pay the delivery fee.
[00:22:47] You maybe like you're reducing your number of orders. So that's probably the consumer behavior driving that a little bit, but that deceleration in orders is pretty telling that. And now that delivery is kind of table stakes for all grocery. I think that now they're starting to think about like, how do we become more essential in this ecosystem? And they have a lot of data and they have a lot of insights and they do have an advertising platform. And there's just, there's a lot more value that they can offer.
[00:23:14] And DoorDash, same thing, you know, they now have their brand center and they have been kind of following suit on that. So I think that's, that's a prediction is that those are, those companies are going to become a lot more than delivery already are, but are going to continue to become a lot more than delivery platforms. And they have the efficiency and they deliver to the consumer the way they want it. Like there's, there's so much around how a consumer shops that they match. Yes. I love that one. Okay. Probably a lot of people hate grocery shopping. Yeah. Number one human over here.
[00:23:43] A hundred percent. I use Instacart. So in terms of my prediction, I'm thinking about the world of agent to agent communication. So I actually had a really cool conversation with someone about this today. By the way, this kind of creeps me out. I mean, yes. This is like the part of AI that freaks me out. Yeah. Cause what happens? Anyway, that's another podcast. Take the human out of the loop altogether. But yeah, that is another podcast. But it's interesting cause think about it. Let's say that you're a soda company. I'm not going to name any soda company, but a soda company. And you have an agent on your brand.com.
[00:24:14] Yeah. That is briefed on all of your product content. It is matched to your source of truth. It has all your claim information. It has everything that it needs to know about a brand. That agent is talking to chat GPT because chat GPT is like, Hey, someone. And obviously this happens in seconds, not in minutes, but like someone searching for this and they want to know if, uh, this soda brand is sugar free. And if it's great for someone who is on a GLP one, that agent on chat GPT is talking
[00:24:39] to the agent on your brand.com to have this conversation, get the trusted information and then regurgitate it back to the consumer. Interesting. So it's less about scraping and it's more about having that agent to agent interaction. And I think that's where we're moving towards because if retailers have agents, why wouldn't a brand have an agent that's fully trained on the brand voice, on their claims, on all their information, on the source of products. Do you know anyone doing this? No, I do know someone who wants to build it. They should do it.
[00:25:09] Uh, but I think they should do it. I think that's where we're going to move towards and it doesn't take the human out of the loop and it's less for the consumer. It's more for the LLMs like the horizontal LLMs. Yeah. To get more trusted data and to get those questions answered and to be the authoritative source of truth. It's kind of brilliant. I mean, I mean, and then what if the retailer agents could talk to those as well?
[00:25:34] So like, what if Amazon's Alexa for shopping could then confer with, you know, Pepsi.com is like, that's the, that to me is the end goal. And that's, I think where we're heading. And then they're going to be like, should we take over the world? Yeah, I know. And then they're going to be like, shut everything down or send everybody a thousand sodas. Yeah. Like, I don't, I don't want to know what's going to happen. That's why I will not give my credit card to an agent. Cause what if they buy $500 worth of toilet paper? Who's accountable for that? That's a whole nother thing.
[00:26:04] Accountability, but. So that is my prediction. And I think it'll be interesting to see if it happens. Interesting. I like that. Yeah. Well, thank you, Andrea, for chatting with me. Well, thank you, Lauren, for having me. It's a pleasure as always. Amazing.