As AI agents take on more execution, people move up the stack, from tasks to outcomes. I wrote this to explore what that shift really means in practice. Also hear about how Microsoft for Startups is using AI Agents.

Retail Store IQ is not about more dashboards. It’s about turning signals into action at the edge of the store. In this piece, I build on my earlier Retail Store IQ article and explore how sentiment, behavior, context, competition, assortment, inventory, and execution come together to shape better in-store experiences.

Over the past year I have been looking for a startup that can help brands make sense of the fast-moving signals that shape consumer interest. Not by looking at last year’s data, but by reading what customers are paying attention to right now across search, social, creators and other public sources. i-Genie.ai has built one of the most compelling approaches I have seen, turning these external signals into clear insight that helps brands stay ahead of emerging trends.

My 2026 outlook on the technologies I will be watching closely in retail. From Agentic Commerce and Spatial Models to RetailStoreIQ and intention understanding, these are the parts of the intelligence stack that I believe will have a meaningful impact on how the industry operates.

There’s a quiet shift happening in grocery. Protein aisles are expanding, meals are shrinking, and shopper intent is changing faster than most realize.

In my latest post, I explore how CueZen, a Microsoft for Startups Pegasus partner, is helping retailers understand this new shopper and deliver healthier, more personalized journeys.

Reading a Docker article (https://lnkd.in/g_h8BgiP) about microservices sent me down an unexpected rabbit hole. It made me realize there’s a striking parallel between the hidden complexity of microservices and the emerging world of Agentic AI.

From OpenAI’s Instant Checkout to Microsoft’s agent frameworks, Mastercard’s payment agents, NLWEB, and emerging standards like the Agentic Commerce Protocol: the future of shopping won’t start with a click, but with a conversation.This one is for startups, retailers, and anyone building what comes next.

𝑹𝒆𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒍 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒆 𝑰𝑸 began as an insight from Manas, who framed it as a way to measure how intelligently a store uses sensors, data, and AI Agents to understand its environment and act with purpose. He also introduced the 𝑭𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒆𝒓 𝑺𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒆 concept, a retail-specific evolution of Microsoft’s Frontier Firm model that describes stores operating with near-sentient awareness and autonomy. Our conversations quickly moved from idea to possibility, raising questions about what it means for a store to perceive, model, decide, and coordinate humans, robots, and agents in real time. The more we explored it, the clearer it became that retail is entering a new era. A store that senses. A store that reasons. A store with an IQ.