Retail Trends: AI Must Deliver on Its Promise

The Sony Retail Tech Index 2025 highlights three key challenges:

Lack of Evidence: Retailers struggle to demonstrate measurable benefits from retail tech investments.
Skills Shortage: There is insufficient focus on hiring and developing talent to manage and evolve retail technology.
Trust Deficit: Stakeholders remain sceptical about AI-driven processes.

These gaps, the Sony report warns, are preventing retailers from moving beyond pilot projects to scalable, value-generating solutions.

Five Priorities for Retail Tech

To unlock the full potential of digital transformation, the Sony index recommends five strategic priorities:

Start Where It Matters: Address pain points like long queues, stock availability, and inventory loss.
Test Fast, Scale Fast: Expand successful pilots quickly.
Integrate, Don’t Replace: Connect new technologies with existing systems.
Position Compliance as Value: Communicate robust privacy protections to customers.

AI Under Scrutiny

The Retail Tech Index is based on Social Listening – analysis of 721,000 online conversations across social media, forums, and digital channels on topics such as signage, retail media, AI, and customer experience and Job Market Analysis like Review of retail job postings to assess demand for digital skills.

Comparing data from January–August 2025 with the same period in 2024, Sony examined six key markets: UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, and Poland.

While online discussions about customer experience grew 20% year-on-year, engagement (likes, comments, emojis) fell 11%, signalling rising scepticism. Complaints about queues, stock shortages, and high prices dominated conversations.

AI was mentioned over 100,000 times, but engagement dropped by more than half. Among five retail tech pillars – digital signage, in-store media, smart infrastructure, customer experience, and AI – AI generated the highest negative sentiment (4%), double the average of the others. Concerns center on privacy, job security, and compliance, amplified by the EU’s AI Act, which mandates transparency and accountability for AI-driven systems.

Leadership Gap

Retail faces a leadership challenge: in the UK, ICT managers account for just 0.1% of retail management hires, compared to 3.3% across the economy. Similar trends appear in France and Germany. While retail tech job postings rose 40%, most focus on infrastructure rather than strategic digital transformation.

Regional Insights

Germany & UK: Strong interest in RFID, self-service kiosks, and computer vision, but severe ICT talent shortages.
France: Compliance with the AI Act is a priority, likely via external partners.
Spain: Rapid adoption of retail media tech, but limited digital leadership.
Italy & Poland: Persistent underrepresentation of ICT managers.

Chris Mullins, Head of Product Marketing, Professional Solutions and Displays, Sony Europe, summarizes: “Retailers don’t lack innovation – they lack visible progress. Customers want proof that technology improves their shopping experience today, not promises for tomorrow. With Bravia Professional Displays and our Aitrios platform, we aim to help retailers close these gaps and deliver measurable results where it matters most: in-store.”