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3 Takeaways from NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show
It’s been a few weeks since Cisco joined more than 40,000 retail industry leaders in New York City for NRF: Retail’s Big Show. This event is consistently the pulse of the evolving retail landscape and serves as a central hub for what’s next in the industry. The 2025 event featured the theme “Game Changer,” and throughout the event experience, three game–changing takeaways stood out above the rest:
AI is driving new capabilities in personalized engagement
AI was everywhere at NRF, and it was clear that its evolution continues to lead the largest transformation in the industry’s history to date. Across the event, we saw how AI technologies are being leveraged to analyze vast amounts of data around customer preferences and behavior. If utilized effectively, this allows retailers to offer new value-added experiences for customers like personalized recommendations and targeted offers, ultimately leading to larger baskets and higher satisfaction.
AI was on full display inside Cisco’s booth as our mobile engagement demo highlighted Webex Connect’s ability to redefine the purchase journey with intelligent automation. Mobile coffee ordering met attendees in the Cisco booth, highlighting an experience beginning with AI-driven self-service and finishing with some of the best lattes on the show floor.
Smart cameras are an essential data source for the store of the future
Historically, camera usage in retail has focused on protecting both physical and digital assets, ensuring the safety of employees and customers, and preventing theft and fraud. However, beyond a security use case, camera data can help retailers gain new and vital insights into their store environments and their customers. Camera data can be used to optimize store layouts, improve product placements, and enhance overall customer flow, as well as monitor customer behavior to gain insights into trends and preferences.
Cisco showcased this important opportunity for retailers in the booth with the full lineup of cloud-managed smart Meraki cameras with ecosystem partner, EVERYANGLE. When paired together, the data generated via Cisco Meraki cameras is leveraged through the power of EVERYANGLE’s advanced AI analytics to reveal hidden patterns and profitable opportunities for retailers, such as demographics and sentiment of customers, as well as traditional metrics around footfall and dwell time, indicating customer interest in store areas and products.
Retail innovation demands digital resilience
The retail industry has experienced significant amounts of innovation post-pandemic. However, digital transformation poses complex challenges and a massive opportunity for many retailers — and it’s not just about the adoption of new technology.
Retailers are now held to higher standards every day when it comes to customer experiences. Customers expect each touchpoint with a retailer to be seamless and consistent across both digital and physical interactions. One out of stock item or one poor application experience can be the difference between a loyal customer and a lost sale. By collecting, combining, and analyzing vast new data sets from point-of-sale (POS) systems, associate devices, mobile applications, store facilities, guest Wi-Fi networks, and IoT, retailers can minimize downtime at stores, increase application reliability, and even pinpoint fraudulent activities. We highlighted these new capabilities, recently added to the Cisco portfolio by Splunk.
Splunk IT Service Intelligence provides the mechanism for such visibility across physical and online stores with real-time key performance indicators and service-level monitoring to enhance retailer’s digital resilience and allow them to deliver the experiences customers expect.
Cisco for retail: Connecting and protecting retail organizations in the AI era
At NRF, Cisco was thrilled to showcase end-to-end retail solutions and demonstrate how we are equipping businesses to take on new challenges. Cisco not only understands the constantly evolving retail landscape, but our solutions are making it possible. We can help you modernize your network infrastructure and embed your physical and digital environments with the intelligence, analytics, and automation needed to drive your key business outcomes. Check out some valuable resources below to see how Cisco is Connecting and protecting retail organizations in the AI era.
Cisco Portfolio Explorer for Retail
Cisco ThousandEyes for Retail
Splunk and the Cisco Store demonstrate the power of digital resilience at NRF 2025
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