What to Expect At Shoptalk Europe 2026: A Conversation With Adam Plom | 5IM

Foreign.

Us for today's 5 insightful minutes conversation is Adam Plom.

Adam is the vice president and head of content for Shop Talk Europe and he is here to give us a preview of what to expect at the upcoming Shop Talk Europe conference in Barcelona from June 9 to June 11.

Adam, let's start with this.

What makes Shop Talk Europe so special and unique in the conference circuit?

Fun.

That's a good place to start.

I think what makes Shop Talk Europe special, in my opinion is, is the fact we're really pan European.

I think a lot of events have really strong sort of, you know, national strongholds, if you like, but we really bring together every major European country across the European ecosystem.

And then I think, you know, what adds to that is what makes Shop Talk as a brand really unique, which is that we bring together the full ecosystem.

So retailers, grocers, brands, startups, tech investors, media analysts, etc, that, that full ecosystem and within that, within the retailer and brand community, you know, it's the full set of vertical.

So it's, it's, it's apparel to cpg, jewelry to beauty.

You know, everyone's included in that respect.

And so I think bringing together that full ecosystem at the scale that we do, four and a half thousand attendees in June, one in three are going to be sea level, is what makes it really unique that, that quality and quantity.

I guess to simmer it down from a content perspective, I'm biased.

You have head of content, as you said, but, you know, fully editorially.

Driven.

We have 60 sessions, 180 speakers at VP level plus 65% ish or C level.

So yeah, I think that's what, what makes us special, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah.

And you didn't even mention Barcelona in June in that whole thing too, which is also a true thing.

So, so, you know, with that said, I think that's a good segue here.

So, like, what are you most excited about?

Like, if you had to pinpoint one thing about this year's conference, what are you most excited about?

It's funny because I think if you'd asked me this two weeks ago, my answer would have been different.

But off the back of Shop Talk spring in Las Vegas last week, we had our own roadshow event in Amsterdam last week as well.

I think it's the.

There's two things for me.

One, it's kind of the moment in time.

It feels like it feels more needed than ever, I think, for the industry.

I know it's a bit of a cliche.

Ben Miller called this out himself on The Key Takeaways podcast.

You know, unprecedented, unprecedented rate of change.

We always talk about that, but it really feels like that at the moment.

Like last year's show was just on the cusp of tariffs, but this year already we've had, you know, we've had war, we've had trade disruptions, there's technological advancements like we've never seen before.

And so it feels needed and timely for the industry.

But I think above all else, there seems to be a change in tone in conversation.

And I think this was really felt last week in Las Vegas, which is that everyone's open to sharing more than they've ever been willing to share.

I think in a way that's kind of, here's what we're trying when it comes to AI or otherwise.

Here's what's worked, here's what hasn't.

And we'd love to talk about the future.

We kind of can't because we don't really know what it's going to look like.

So I think it's almost an abstract excitement for me.

I'm intrigued to see, like, how that plays out in Europe, especially when there's this kind of undertone in Europe at the moment.

And it's kind of funny for me as a Brit to say this on a podcast with kind of a largely American audience, but there is this kind of united European sentiment at the moment around in Europe for growth, as a retailer, for innovation, for tech.

And like, how does that play out?

And we hear that a lot in one to one conversations.

But will people say that on stage?

Will they say it in a larger group setting that there's this kind of European sovereignty conversation taking place, which is, which is really quite interesting.

Right, right.

So I'm curious that, like, how do you, I mean, your head of content for the, for the conference, like, how do you take all of that and then, you know, go about thinking about and designing the overall content plan for the show?

Like, take us through that, Adam.

Yeah, absolutely.

So it's not easy, I would say.

So we, the moment the show finishes in 25, we then start researching for 26.

We spend the summer having research calls with people who are at the show, people who weren't.

We obviously do our own desktop research and we build our kind of editorial view of what's important for the industry for the year ahead.

I would say that's even harder than ever because us writing a program in September is quite funny because come June, the next year, you know, a lot's changed, but we still have to finesse it and change it and create a program that we stand by editorially.

And I think what's interesting is that what we build in some form in the summer into September the year before is still resembled by the time we get to June the following year, because we don't have that pressure of, you know, pay to play content and other things that play at Shop Talk.

But I think it has forced us to do a few different things this year.

So Shop Talk Europe, for the first time we have a track dedicated to AI, which is kind of, you know, I think expected in the current era.

But we, we felt that was necessary.

And we also have a track, a stage dedicated to media and marketing, so retail media, social commerce disruptions, discovery, you know, AI driven content and creative and things like that.

And so we had to kind of get those pillars right because I think that's what the audience are really, really looking for.

But then we've had to be really careful.

I think the European audience in particular have been really keen to impress upon us that they don't want to hear just AI.

They want to hear AI in the right way, but also not at the cost of in store content and kind of that emotional connection to consumers type of conversation.

Not with skipping the data foundation conversation without neglecting the human conversation, the balance around, yes, AI, but how does that happen?

How do you build co intelligence with humans internally and externally?

So this year's felt really interesting because there's really clear themes emerging, but also that sort of undertone of yes, but we want that, but we also want it in the right way and not at the cost of other things.

So that's kind of what we've set out to achieve this year.

And you know, I guess it's not for me to decide if we've done it properly, but it feels in a good place right now, especially off the back of Las Vegas last week again, where I guess the sentiment feels about right for what we're aiming for in June.

So, Adam, that's.

Those are really good points.

It makes me really excited for the conference.

So I want to get you out here on this because you mentioned it, AI, you know, and AI is, I think, the root of what you're, what you've been talking about, right?

It's why, it's why people are looking for answers.

It's why, you know, people.

Why things are changing in terms of what you're excited about.

You know, when you, if I ask you today versus last month and so, so dig into that for me before I Let you go.

Like when you, when we say AI, what will we and won't we be discussing at Shop Talk Europe around AI?

Yeah, it's really interesting.

I think what won't we be discussing is, is a really interesting point.

I think just to step back briefly.

Our overall event theme for this year in Barcelona is, is actually where AI and human ingenuity meet or stage is kind of how we're framing it.

And the reason for that again is through that research last summer where the, you know, our community have told us, yes, AI, we, we need to be hearing about it.

In some cases we, we need to be hearing about it to even justify coming to an event right now, but not at the cost of all of the other stuff.

And so what that means for us is that we're, we're keeping it sort of confined to that, that one stage, that one track and we're, we're approaching it in a few different ways.

First of all, we're gentic, you know, that's top of the list for everybody.

So in particular agentic commerce.

I would say agentic AI is definitely relevant and coming up and we'll cover that.

But agentic commerce is front of mind for everybody.

And so yeah, we've got a couple of sessions dedicated to that from a what's here, what's real, what's happening now conversation with maybe a nod to the future, but really what is this world looking like?

And that's from a retailer and brand perspective, but also a platform perspective.

And then I guess building on that there's another session which is focused on how retailers and brands show up in the sort of era of let's call it AI search in anticipation of AI commerce.

So you know, a lot of retailers and brands are talking to us about how they focus on their product data or how they're focusing on increased PR and communications or more influencer campaigns, anything really, to make sure that they appear regularly and highly on LLM based searches.

So we're, we're really digging into that.

And then I think, you know, beyond that, the, the overarching thing for us is, is use cases.

And so whether it's traditional AI, generative AI, agentic AI and whether it's at the point of cx, whether it's at the point of E commerce, marketing operations, supply chain, any of those places, anything we cover from there on is things that retailers and brands have done or are doing and what the results have been from that.

And in some cases maybe what's not worked as well.

I think people are Always keen to hear about that, but it's, it's really, and use case driven.

But again, back to my other point, we, we're also making sure that we're almost not, not jumping the gun somewhat.

So there's a session on, you know, sort of data readiness for AI.

So, you know, for some that in the audience are not as a mature business, you know, how do you make sure your data is ready to deliver value from, from AI projects?

You know, the whole garbage in, garbage out type of conversation, which has been around for a long time, but feels even more pertinent right now.

And then, and then the human side, you know, we're looking at kind of the workforce of the future, if you like, which is how do you bring in AI capabilities internally and what does that mean for the human workforce?

And in some cases that may mean that some roles disappear or change beyond recognition.

It may mean that some roles are massively disrupted or some roles emerge that didn't previously exist.

But we're really trying to, we're trying to have a really well rounded conversation about it rather than just what might the future of AI and retail look like?

Because I think people have heard a lot of that and that's not what they're going to get the value from this year, in my opinion.

Yeah, and I think that's what you guys do best too, is you try to keep it real with what is, what is real.

Tangible takeaways that the conference goers can, you know, take back to their jobs and, and make themselves better.

That's what you guys do so well from a content perspective.

Well, thank you, Adam.

That was great stuff and I can't personally, I can't wait to see you in Barcelona.

Likewise.

Looking forward to it.

See you then.

It.