Last Updated on June 23, 2026 by Elliot Maras
Ed Crowley of Urway Holdings addresses a panel on how AI and intelligent systems create connected experiences, flanked at left by moderator Kimberly Carney, Alec Mauer of Neon Studios and Mario Paganini of Magshin.
Trade Show Report
Everyone knows that AI is now the driving force in how consumers shop, where they shop and how they engage with brands. That being said, how can brands use AI to optimize customer engagement and build loyalty?
A discussion at last week’s Infocomm 2026 show in Las Vegas outlined a strategic approach to this question in a panel titled, “How AI and intelligent systems create connected experiences.” Brands have been testing and learning about AI for several years, and the four panelists, all veterans, shared the lessons they have learned.
One point all four agreed on is that AI has created a better understanding of how consumers want to be served, offering more ways to serve them successfully.
“AI is not simply another technology layer, but an enabling force behind a more connected, personalized and seamless customer experience,” said session moderator Kimberly Carney, founder and CEO at The Wires, operator of three fashion online marketplaces: FashWire, GlossWire and CasaWire.
Meeting shoppers where they are
While AI provides brands with tools to improve many critical tasks, including marketing, promoting and scaling customer experience, technology providers need to consider how the technology fundamentally fits how the consumer already acts, said Mario Paganini, chief marketing officer at Mashgin, an AI-powered self-checkout system using computer vision and machine learning to instantly identify items without barcodes.
“It doesn’t ask the customer to fundamentally change the way they shop,” Paganini said. “It takes a retail experience that we’ve all known and loved for thousands and thousands of years of a customer walking up and having a face to face interaction with the cashier,” and making it faster and easier.
And while AI-enabled technology improves the customer experience, it also allows the retailer to scale self-checkout significantly. “One cashier can manage three or four lanes simultaneously, and all of that happens without asking the cashier or the customer to fundamentally change the way that they shop,” Paganini said.
Another benefit for brands is to engage with customers more individually.
“When you integrate AI, you can target that content to specific customers that you’re looking to attract,” said Alec Mauer, director of experience at Neon Studios, a provider of digital signage and overhead music. Mauer has a customer with 100 locations that delivers individually tailored content to consumers. For example, a happy birthday announcement plays in the store when a customer completes the purchase.
“It’s those little touches that we can deliver to the customer that are really going to take that experience to the next level,” Mauer said.
Paganini agreed.
“What I think a lot of business owners and leaders are omitting in this while they’re chasing that sexy AI product is that fundamental, magical customer experience, and I think that businesses that realize that AI is a tool to scale your brand…and focus on delivering those magical human-to-human interactions,” Paganini said.
Convenience, speed and accurate info
The technology’s goal can be summarized by three elements: convenience, speed and information accuracy, said Ed Crowley, chief engagement officer at UR Holdings and founder of AI Connect, a tool that powers AI conversational voice for kiosks and digital signage.
“Conversational AI is just one more modality in which to better serve the customer, provide a better customer journey,” Crowley said. “Once you can connect all these dots together of that entire customer journey, you will start seeing mass adoption of conversational AI in retail, hospitality, and especially QSR. We’re all familiar with the drive-thru experience. Other performing speakers and microphones and the old Charlie Brown ‘wah wah wah’, that’s all you hear back. But as technology improves, AI improves, the ASRs and the LLMs that drive this improve, you will start seeing conversational AI showing up in every modality of every customer journey no matter what market it is.”
Crowley labeled conversational AI as the “horizontal solution.”
“Twenty-six (2026) is the year of pilots, but twenty-seven (2027) is the year of scale,” he said.
What about the employee?
While much public discussion has focused on AI’s impact on the labor force, the panelists agreed that AI makes the employee more important to the customer than ever.
“The human element is more important than ever,” Mauer said. AI can spot trends and analyze data, but it will never recreate the human to human connection.
“Figuring out how to deliver that (AI-enabled customer experience) in a human-to-human way is more important now in the age of AI,” Crowley agreed. One reason for this is that customers are already using digital tools at home.
“Why shouldn’t we be able to interact with an in-store digital device the same way we would interact at home?” Crowley asked. “All of a sudden we go into the store and we have left this information at home.”
From the store associate’s point of view, AI can relieve them from performing tedious, repetitive tasks and spend more time interacting with customers, he said. Hence, it is incumbent upon retail management to have the associates’ support when introducing technology. It ultimately delivers higher ROI for the business through greater labor efficiency and higher customer throughput and sales.
“The employees you interact with in the store are going to be the number one determinant of your satisfaction as a customer,” Paganini said.
The triple win
Technology needs to address the needs of three stakeholders: the tech provider, the venue and the end user, Paganini said. By meeting all three of these players’ needs, technology can create what he called a “trifecta,” a three-way win.
One example the panelists cited as having failed this strategy is grocery self checkout, as evidenced by surveys showing consumer dissatisfaction.
“If that (technology) comes at the expense of the shopper experience…you’re not really creating a net win,” Paganini said.
A successful technology implementation is one that the customer does not notice.
“When you integrate AI the right way, your customer shouldn’t even notice,” Mauer said.
“They want convenience, speed and accuracy,” Crowley agreed. “If you can give them those things, they really don’t care if it’s AI, human or not.”
“It is the blending and becoming a hybrid experience of visual, conversational, vision, touch, where you need it, when you need it and how you want it,” Crowley said. “That’s how AI is going to emerge out of twenty-six, into twenty-seven, it’s going to go in like gangbusters.”
