Starbucks Has AI Egg On It's Face, Google Reinvents Search & Ross Stores Breaks Records | Fast Five

Hello and welcome to the Omnitalk Retail Fast 5, which comes to you by way of the Omnitalk retail podcast network, the number one retail podcast network according to Apple Podcasts and Feedspot.

In today's episode, we welcome back guest host extraordinaire Laura Kennedy.

And together we got into some wonderful discussions about where and how AI will and will also not work inside of retail stores.

This is our last podcast of the month of May.

Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode.

And so producer Ella, let's roll that teaser trailer.

I told him to his face.

I was like, I don't think we'll ever see you roll out to all Old Navy stores.

And he's like, I'll bet you a beer.

If you're going to promise that the human in the loop is a big part of the solution, then employee training needs to be a higher priority.

We don't know all the psychological reasons about why we choose to engage and actually consume products from the places we consume them from.

Our payment systems were built to keep robots out and now we're trying to reintroduce them.

My prediction is that very soon we're going to see a national branded retailer that makes its name in resale with stores throughout the country.

All right, Laura Kennedy, Indiana's own.

How have you been keeping since you crushed your first guest host appearance on the Fast5 last month?

You know, just the usual kind of end of spring stuff.

The school year wound down.

Month of May is big in Indianapolis with events around the Indy 500.

Last week I was at the lead conference in New York.

Met a lot of people who are thinking really creatively and innovatively about brands and marketing and digital commerce.

So that was a super fun place to be.

Yeah.

How was, yeah, tell us more about that.

How many days was it?

Where was it in New York?

It's, it was at Pier 36 in New York.

It's, it was, it's a two day conference.

I wasn't able to stay for the whole thing, but there's a huge D to C element there.

So there's a lot of focus on brands and a lot of the tech.

A lot of the tech.

You know, exhibitors are sort of marketing and brand oriented in terms of helping you reach your, your customers in a faster, better way.

And so it was my first time attending.

It was great.

I saw some great content and some great brands talk about how they approach their customers.

I also interviewed a VP from Steve Madden and about their efforts in gentic commerce.

So.

And it Was.

It was a really interesting conversation.

They're one of the first brands to get on ChatGPT in the.

When instant checkout existed.

Yeah, that's right.

That's right.

They were.

Yeah.

And also that's interesting.

So I imagine that might even.

We'll see if that filters into the conversation today got planned for you or not.

But.

But to that point.

To the point.

I'm glad.

Thanks for.

Thanks for telling us about that.

But remind our audience, for those that are maybe tuning in first time, because we have a lot of new listeners each and every week, remind our audience about yourself, Laura, what your background is and you know, what, like, what brought you to lead conference.

Like, why is this your thing?

Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm a retail strategist, most recently of CB Insights, previously at Kantar High Level.

I've spent my career helping big companies understand where retail is heading and what to do about it.

Right now I'm actively looking for my next opportunity somewhere where strategy meets commercial stakes.

Build on my background in research and advisory.

And so, yeah, it was, it was great to learn a lot more about what's happening on the brand and marketing side of things at the lead last week.

And, you know, I think talking about agent to commerce and AI and commerce, it's, it's the confluence of things that we've seen kind of merging closer and closer together with the advent of digital commerce.

You know, marketing and merchandising have, have.

Have always felt like they were getting closer together when you talked about E commerce and serving a lot of the same purpose.

And so I think this was a good illustration of that and thinking about how AI changes buying and shopping and, you know, is a good illustration of that as well.

Yeah, yeah, it's.

It's definitely a topic.

The topic du jour each and every week on this podcast across the industry, too.

So, Laura, before we get going, I want to, I want to ask you a question I've never asked anyone just to get our brains moving, to get into the headlines here.

And I'm curious, you know, for all the other guest hosts that have either already hosted or will host in the future, since you've done it once you've gotten your feet wet, what's your one piece of advice you would have for them?

Well, I think my advice for anything like this or, you know, speaking publicly or to somebody in the press or, or, or something like that is to, to speak to what you know, you know, and, and really try and dig into that and have fun with what you don't know, you know, it's good to acknowledge what you don't know, but have fun with it.

And I think it gives a good opportunity for the co host and you to kind of talk through those things.

You know, be ready for things to move fast, feel open to speak your mind and embrace the serious, the serious business stuff, but also where we can joke about this industry and, you know, the state of the world.

But, you know, it's not, it's not Howard Stern or, or call her daddy or whatever your podcast of choice is.

So, you know, don't speak too freely.

It's definitely not colored daddy, that's for sure.

Yes, exactly.

That's a great reference.

Yeah, no, that's great.

That's great.

That's such a great answer too, you know, so it's like stay in your lane, stay curious and have fun.

You know, that.

Which is kind of, which is kind of our motto on the show.

So that's great.

All right, well, Laura, should we get to today's program?

Let's do it.

All right, let's get to this week's Fast 5, which of course is brought to you with the help and support of the A and M consumer and retail group, Miracle Corso, Ocampo Capital and Valoc.

In this week's Fast5, we've got news on a retail inventory startup backed by American Eagle CEO that has reached unicorn status.

Google Search getting its biggest makeover in over 25 years.

Klarna launching a brand new shopping app directly inside ChatGPT with live prices.

I can see Laura shaking her head on that one already.

And Ross stores absolutely blowing past expectations with a 21% sales jump.

But we begin today with a cautionary AI tale straight out of Starbucks.

All right, headline number one.

Headline number one is brought to you of course, by the A and M Consumer and Retail Group.

The A and M Consumer and Retail Group is a management consulting firm that tackles the most complex challenges and and advances its clients, people and communities toward their maximum potential.

NMCRG brings the experience, tools and operator like pragmatism to help retailers and consumer products companies be on the right side of disruption.

All right, Laura, here we go.

Headline 1.

Starbucks has scrapped its AI powered inventory counting tool just nine months after rolling it out across its North American stores.

After the system repeatedly miscounted and mislabeled products, including confusing similar milk types and missing items altogether, according to the must read retail coverage in the Huff Post.

Of course I'm joking, but that tells you something about this story.

Starbucks has terminated what it called its automated counting program this week, with an internal company newsletter confirming the shutdown.

The tool provided by Nomad Go was deployed in September 2025 across more than 11,000 North American locations as part of CEO Brian Nichols back to Starbucks turnaround strategy.

Nomad Go had claimed the system could count inventory up to eight times faster than manual efforts and with 99% accuracy.

In a slight bit of irony too, Laura Starbucks had previously told Reuters as recently as February, so just three months ago that the adoption of the tool had improved product availability in stores.

The company has since deleted the original September 2025 blog post announcing the rollout.

Laura Starbucks just pulled the plug on an AI inventory.

That tool that couldn't count.

Milk.

What does the story tell us about the state of AI deployment in retail operations right now?

And do you think this is a one off stumble or a warning sign for the industry?

I think, you know, the simple answer is I think it's a stumble.

But with, with any activity in this space, it's always going to give us a useful data point of some kind of just in case people don't know.

Nomad Goes technology that it uses devices with spatial vision, a form of computer vision, just to count what's on a shelf and see what's missing.

And an associate does interact with the device.

It's not, you know, a fixed camera like so much of what we know with computer vision for inventory.

And the part about a human being involved is probably the main issue and just highlights the variability in challenge and how all of these tools work.

You know, I feel like every example of AI inventory tracking, often computer vision and the use of it as Shelt has taught us that there are very specific and narrow circumstances where it does work.

You, you need things to be very predictable as the oversimplified version of it.

And a restaurant and a business like Starbucks is not predictable.

It's very high turn.

There's seasonal drinks coming in, you know, in the tools defense, all milk, whether it's a milk product or dairy milk looks the same.

And so then you mentioned 11,000 locations that multiply that by number of associates and then you've got an associate who is looking at the screen based on Nomad, goes on videos and you know, kind of checking it.

And so the tough thing for Nomad is that restaurants and food service are listed as its top capabilities.

And so that's unfortunate for them, you know, if it was further down their list of capabilities, that might be better.

But yeah, I would also have to imagine, you know, that I would have thought that there'd be someone who'd recognize some of these errors.

And so it really shows you how when you get these tools into a store and into operation, store, restaurant, what have you, you're relying on.

On so many different factors that you can control for when you're testing them.

The.

The other thing that I do think is important to note is that this is a type of AI solution that has existed much longer than what we think of in 2026 as AI deployment and retail operations.

Definitively.

Yeah.

And so, you know, maybe this just reminds us of how much refinement there's going to be for every type of AI in retail that we think of going into the next decade.

Who knows?

Going back to what I heard at the lead, though, was a lot of enthusiasm for test and learn culture being first instead of just a fast follower and then iterating fast from there.

And so you hope that Nomad learns.

Starbucks has shown an affinity for that.

And so I don't think we have to be worried about Starbucks on that front so specifically.

So, yeah, that's my take.

I think there's a lot to learn from it.

Yeah, I think.

I think 100%.

I think it's definitively a stumble.

You know, I think the interesting part about this, I think there's two things I'd say off what you said.

I think one is, one is the interesting point is the egg on the face.

Like, when you're talking about this being like a significant part of your operational improvements in February, it's kind of like, oh, you got to make an about face on that.

And that's not good for Starbucks.

It's definitely not good for Nomad.

Go for the reasons you said, too.

And so, you know, I think that tells me, too, you can't always buy into the hype cycle.

You got to give it time.

And to do this effectively, my first takeaway is.

My first takeaway is you have to have continuous learning.

It's not just jumping be first to try new technology or experiment, but you have to be continuously learning and basically coming at it with the mindset of you're never going to get this right.

And so you almost don't even want to talk about these things publicly because you're kind of setting yourself up for failure when you start to do that, especially when they're just at their early stages of implementation.

The other part, the word you said predictability, Laura.

For me, the reason I think that's the number one reason it's a stumble is it's predictability.

But it comes down to also the predictability angle, I would say too is it comes down to the predictability of who's using the technology when your technology requires an employee to use it.

With the turnover in the retail industry, that just is a massive issue.

And so whenever that fact is in play, it's hard to deploy a system that works consistently the same way every time.

And that's where automation works best.

Whether it's AI, computer vision, whatever, you want to be doing the same thing the same way every time.

That's why things like robotics, fixed position cameras like you mentioned, or robotics that always do it the same way because it's a fricking robot, not a person you have to train each time or, or even overhead rfid, which we're gonna talk about as well.

So like that's the, those are where I see things going in the long run.

And that's why I think this is, it's a much harder technology to implement than people think.

Even though to your point, it's been around for a really long time.

Like self scanning with a employee device or an iPad is not new, but it's really hard to do it well, for the reasons we said.

Yeah, I mean, and I think from the tech company perspective, maybe that it elevates the need to emphasize employee training as part of the solution.

Like, we're going to help, this is how we're going to help your employees learn.

Because like you said, they have to, they have to train people quickly and, you know, a new person every day.

And if that's going to be a huge part of it, and if you're going to promise that the human in the loop is a big part of the solution, then maybe employee training needs to be a higher priority.

Yeah, and when I, and when I hear you say that, I'm already like, yeah, not for me, like as a former executive, I'm like, not, not for me.

Then there, there's.

We're going to look for a different answer that provides an easier path to what we're trying to accomplish or what our objective is.

That's how I think about what you just said, Laura.

Yeah.

Yeah, more automation makes sense.

All right, shall we move on to number two and more inventory talk?

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All right, so our second headline, excuse me, getting over my spring cold here.

Radar, a retail inventory intelligence startup backed by American Eagle CEO Jay Shot and has reached unicorn status after raising $170 million in a series B funding round at a valuation of over $1 billion, according to CNBC.

Radar was founded in 2013 by Spencer Hewitt, a former Peter Thiel Fellowship recipient who originally set out to build a better instant checkout solution before pivoting to inventory management.

Radar's platform uses ceiling mounted hardware to read RFID tags across store interiors, achieving what the company claims is a 99% item level accuracy rate.

The data flows into a software layer that converts real time location signals into operational actions.

Think automated replenishment alerts, omnichannel fulfillment routing, loss prevention triggers, and merchandising intelligence.

American Eagle was the first retailer to deploy the technology, which fleet wide and Radar is now deployed across more than 1, 400 stores, including old Navy locations.

Chris, Starbucks just killed an AI inventory tool that didn't work.

But Radar has just hit a $1 billion valuation on the promise of doing inventory right.

What does this company getting to unicorn status tell you about where the smart money thinks the real opportunity in physical retail AI actually is?

Wow, that, that, that's a great question.

And you know, I got first, I got to give major kudos to Radar for this announcement.

And I am eating some serious crow on this announcement.

I have followed, I followed RFID technology, particularly in apparel, since my store of the future days.

And I said on this podcast when, when they made the Old Navy announcement, I said I was highly skeptical.

We had Spencer Hewitt, the CEO, on and we basically made a bet.

I was like, I told him to his face, I don't think we'll ever see you roll out to all Old Navy stores.

And he's like, I'll bet you a beer.

And, and to that point, I'm eating some serious crow.

And for all you listeners, because of that, I've invited Spencer to join us next week for five insightful minutes.

And he's going to appropriately put me in my place.

And I think it's very well deserved.

So kudos to him.

But I think what we're getting at here, Laura, is what I alluded to in the first headline, retailers demand accuracy.

And in the apparel setting, RFID we know can work.

It can work.

But it is about finding the right system for your operation that delivers on two things, consistent accuracy and also informative actions to take off of the data, which it sounds like Radar is moving in that direction.

So to me, the key point here is the money flow.

The money flow, the size of the investment is validation that RFID has finally, finally crossed the chasm of acceptance for the retailers that understand where the future is headed.

But what do you think?

Yeah, I mean, this is kind of the.

I agree with you.

This is the other side of the coin from the Starbucks example where it shows how important categories and the match of a category and a solution is to it actually working.

You know, from my discussions with people in this space, even health and beauty is stuff, because you'd think, yeah, it's square, you know, they're often boxes, but RFID needs to be attached further back in the manufacturing process and that doesn't happen in health and beauty.

And so there's a lot of complexity that that is sounds makes it a lot more interesting than you would think.

Just, you know, sort of slapping a tag on something.

You know, obviously the vertical nature of these particular retailers also matters a lot.

Know, it's still fairly remarkable given the number of SKUs that go through an Old Navy store.

American Eagle too, but Old Navy especially.

But you know, I think like you said, it always just raises to me, so where is this going next?

You know, so we've crossed the chasm.

Clearly the cost has come down.

We're getting better at manufacturing products and putting chips in them, you know, where they can go and tags.

But it's still a very complex ecosystem of, of parts and technology.

You know, you have old guard like Avery Denison making rfid.

You have like Zebra that makes the tech to read them.

You have companies like Radar that are trying to do all the parts of it.

And so, you know, as a retailer or brand, you how do you know who you know that who you align with or who you connect with will actually be able to change as the technology evolves.

And I think that's the big question if you're looking at it from that side.

But you know, having having Old Navy and American Eagle under their belt I think is a really good sign for their solution.

And, you know, it's going to get way more complex.

You know, Walmart's still working on it with Avery and Fresh.

We're trying to get into more categories.

I think there's still some FDA requirements around it coming up in a few years.

So it's definitely going to be a space to keep an eye on.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, you bring up a lot of great points.

Like that's your point about what's the vertical and what's the right solution is really key, like we just talked about with Starbucks.

You're alluding to it with Grocery.

That's why I like robotics in Grocery, because it's a different.

It's a different element to how that that store assortment works.

Whereas robotics in an apparel store is tougher because, like, how does the robot tell between, you know, a medium and a small?

It's really tough.

Right?

But RFID enables that, whereas you have the hangups with RFID, like liquids, metals, all those things, which they're solved for day and day.

If I talk to the RF ID folks, they'll always.

They always correct me on that whenever I say that.

And I'm like, yeah, it's getting better, but it's still not potentially where it needs to be from a mass rollout standpoint.

So the other point I make, just as closing, because I want to give Spencer his props.

Dude's been at this for like 10 years.

And he started out, he started out as like, computer vision checkout free.

That's how he was going to do this for the apparel space.

And he smartly has pivoted because he's like, you know what?

My technology is still great for providing the use case that retailers need, which is, again, accuracy and insights off the data.

And so that's what's really fascinating.

And the last question I'm going to ask him, so he needs to get ready for it, if he's listening, is where's he.

Where are you going next?

Like, what are you doing with that money?

How are you scaling what's over the hill for you?

So I can't wait to talk to him about it.

Yeah, that's great.

That's a very timely, timely get.

I'm glad he's coming back.

And hopefully you'll.

You'll get him that beer virtually or.

Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.

Next time we're in real life together, I'm definitely getting that beer.

And not surprising, I heard from them as soon as that announcement broke, too, which was great.

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All right, number three.

Google search is getting its biggest overhaul in over 25 years.

This announcement is quite big, with the company announcing at its IO developer conference last week that it's completely reimagining the search box with AI surpassing 1 billion monthly users for AI mode and launching always on background agents that monitor the web without any user prompt.

According to the Verge, which once again for all you loyal listeners out there, should never be confused with the fabulous band the verve, Google announced five major search changes at its May 19 keynote.

Number one, a completely rebuilt search box.

Number two, a new default AI model powering AI mode.

Number three, persistent background agents that work on a user's behalf without being asked.

Number four, expanded agentic booking for local services and number five, and finally, a rollout of personal intelligence features to nearly 200 countries.

And most features require no subscription.

The new search box supports text, image files, videos and Chrome tabs simultaneously.

Background agents, a new category entirely, can monitor topics of interest and proactively surface updates without the user ever even typing a query.

For retailers, the implications here are potentially significant.

AI generated shopping summaries now claim the majority of above the fold real estate in product searches and brands cited inside AI overviews are seeing meaningfully more organic clicks than non cited competitors, according to early data.

Laura this also happens to be the A and M put you on the spot Question of the week the A and M consumer and retail groups put you on the spot question of the week.

And so here it is.

Often people are criticized for using AI like Google.

Hmm.

Are these changes enough to make people use Google search like AI?

I think the simple question is that people are probably already using Google or the simple answer to that is people are using Google like AI.

And I have always really my sort of black and white take is just that Google wins.

I mean Google is the best, is the best positioned here it has the volume.

Especially when it comes to AI and commerce, you can't beat the volume that Google has right now.

You know, there was a chart that went around a few months ago around daily traffic for purchasable product and it showed this big huge bar for ChatGPT.

The math has, has people have debated the math online in the, in the, the retail substacks and so and, and kind of cleared some of it up.

But you know the, the short story is that actually Amazon traffic is way higher and then Google just blows them all out of the water now.

You know, harder to figure out where, whether all of that is around trying to buy stuff.

You know, the flip side is, you know, Google has all these statistics about users and using AI mode.

I don't know if anyone's actually doing that by choice, you know, and if anybody who's ever gotten an AI overview.

I think there's a real feeling that they're wrong a lot of the time.

Is it wrong more than ChatGPT or its brethren?

I don't know.

Are we just accustomed to Google being right a lot?

You know, I, but that all said, Google's position as the, the destination of choice in the past, you know, I still think sets it up really well to be, you know, the shopping destination.

And that's, that's the part that I'm actually most focused on in all of Google's announcements is not really AI mode broadly, but all of the AI enabled shopping features that are underneath it.

You know, Scott Wingo, who writes the retail Gentic substack, he talked, he called out, he called out specifically that they added conversational attributes to, you know, how you tag a product on Google and that's a move toward, you know, reading a product's information more like a ChatGPT or you know, an answer engine would instead of just a keyword.

And so, you know, the search bar is a place where consumers want are going to use natural language.

I think we're just all getting used to doing that everywhere we search.

And so I think the short story is if you're a retailer brand, you just have to be ready for this reality.

I think Google is still really well positioned.

I think, you know, the reasons why will come up in a little bit and when we talk a little bit more about Klarna and you know, what's going to happen on ChatGPT.

But the way your product information is structured, you know, the richness of your attributes, you know, based on what I've heard from brands I mentioned, I spoke with somebody from Steve Madden.

They said it took a year to make sure their data was ready.

And they worked with Scott Wingo's company incidentally.

And so they had to get their data ready.

It took up to a year.

Obviously they're probably still iterating all the time because these engines can read all kinds of different stuff.

So if Google being active in this space is the impetus for that from the retail perspective, you know, then I think it's a really, you know, worthwhile place for a retailer or brand to spend their time.

Nice.

Okay, so I've got, I've got an observation that I'm going to push you a little bit because I think it's important to push you.

I want to push you on this one.

So the first one is the observation that there are sub stacks and subreddits for all the things we Geek out on that is fantastic.

I love that you just came clean on that.

That's great.

And then second, I want to push you so you stick usick.

Google has a right to win and I want to be very specific in understanding what you think they have a right to win at.

So what do you think if, if you're specific?

I think they still have the right to win at shopping and how people gather information for their purchases.

Because we have seen if, if chat GPT and it's a checkout in another world had instant checkout had caught on and people were out here trying to check out in, in chat GPT and very comfortable with it, then we might be having a different conversation because that might be telling us that people have, you know, decamped from all of their previous shopping habits online and they're doing everything somewhere else.

They retired instant checkout because people still want to check out on the retailer websites.

And I feel like Google probably could have told them that based on, you know, what Google has seen over time with Google shopping, where historically and consumers can change anytime.

But I think that it told us that, that consumers are doing a lot of research on ChatGPT, but it's not necessarily where they're putting all of their stock.

The place where I think Google has really has the right to win though is if this at any point goes agentic or, or autonomous because, and you know, I'm spoiling our discussion about Klarna a little bit.

That's okay.

The wallet and payment and the idea of your robot paying for you requires a lot of security, technically speaking, security.

And then, you know, qualitatively speaking, trust and where you're going to pay.

And Google already has that trust.

It has a wallet, it has, you know, some, some features that are already built in versus this idea that you're going to have to sort of build all this infrastructure in a chat GPT now, you know, I, I'm sure OpenAI we have these partnerships with Shopify and there's, there's, there's stuff coming up, you know, we could do as the substack show.

We could have a whole other podcast just about that.

But I still am curious about where Google will go to really kind of take control or be the winner here.

Because I just think that the big, the companies and the technology that consumers already trust are just positioned really well.

I think right to win is actually the right way to say it.

I don't know for sure that they will win, but they definitely are in the catbirds.

They have A horse in a race.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Or a car in the Indy 500, since you're from Indianapolis, right?

Yeah, yeah.

Maybe they're not in the pole position.

They're in the first row.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

That's good.

That's good.

I'm glad, I'm glad, I'm glad I asked the clarification because, yeah, for me, I think, you know, I think, I don't disagree with anything you said.

I think the one question I have is like, will they win when it comes to commerce, our traditional definitions of commercial commerce, I think, you know, are they in position to keep their search traffic and their marketing revenue 100?

They are, you know, they're probably in the pole position for that, quite honestly.

But, but becoming the owner of the shopping journey in a fully agentic world, I don't know.

Payment is one thing which we're going to talk about next, which I'm, I'm really glad we are because it's, it's really interesting how the headlines line up this week, but there are other, you know, the merchant in me, the retail in me tells me there are other.

There are just so many other.

And I'm going to use Joey Tribbiani air quotes here.

Customer important factors that come into play like delivery confidence, customer service, return policies.

So if all that just starts happening in isolation via these platforms, how are we as consumers going to feel about that?

And where do we go if we have problems?

Because, you know, Google doesn't have the infrastructure around customer service set up in the same way in Amazon or, or a Walmart does.

And so I don't know where the retailer is going to begin and where the com, where the search engines are going to end or begin or end, whatever.

I'm even getting confused as I'm talking about it, Laura, But I think there's more to it here.

And I go back to historically, like, you know, if Google was positioned for this, why weren't we just checking out with Google Pay in the marketplace to begin with?

Yeah.

You know, now they're doing a lot of cool things like universal cart that got announced yesterday and all that kind of stuff.

But, but that's how I'm, I think there's more factors at play here than we're actually talking about routinely as an industry, at least that I'm seeing get talked about routinely.

Well, and I think the, the, the factors that you're bringing up are not just Google issues.

They are issues with there being a platform where we do all of our shopping that's not a retailer.

That's not just a Google issue.

That's just like overall almost philosophical, like, could this ever happen?

Because this is the way we shop.

And, you know, we've seen many, many times in history and even in our relatively short careers that they change and they just do a new thing.

So I think the thing with Google, I mean, you mentioned about customer service and, and all that.

I think that's where, you know, the payment term for it is, you know, merchant of record and like, who owns the payment and all that kind of nitty gritty stuff.

But I think that customer service tells is maybe subconsciously why people prefer not to do their checkout in ChatGPT.

That might be one reason they said, I don't really understand what's happening here.

The other thing Google sees, I have a Gmail address.

It knows everywhere I already shop the things I have bought, whether I like it or not.

I mentioned the wallet as this very technical piece, but that ability to see across, I think matters a lot for Google and a truly agentic world, which increasingly, I'm not positive we're going to go the way that we thought we were.

But that's another discussion too.

Yeah.

And it comes back to what we talked about last week with Amazon.

Google gets a lot of search traffic, but Amazon gets product search traffic, you know, and will it keep its hold on that or will it grow that with its announcements that it made, you know, with Alexa and, you know, Rufus and everything else it's doing, you know, time will tell and, you know, because it does have, it does bring those things to the table in a way that the LLMs just simply do not.

And Walmart potentially has that ability too, especially the size of their marketplaces.

So.

Right, yeah, fascinating discussion.

All right, let's get into payments.

Laura.

All right, headline number four, which you probably now already know what the headline is because we talked about it, is brought to you by Ocampo Capital.

Ocampo Capital is a venture capital firm founded by retail executives with the aim of helping early stage consumer businesses succeed through investment and operational support.

Learn more@ocampocapital.com Our headline, our fourth headline, is that Klarna has launched a new shopping search app directly inside ChatGPT, allowing consumers to search for products, compare prices, check availability and view offers from multiple retailers, all without ever leaving the AI chat interface.

According to payments, Klarna announced the launch of its shopping search app in ChatGPT on May 20 last week.

Shoppers can describe what they want in natural language, receive Visual product results with real time prices and availability from participating merchants and then be redirected to the merchant site to complete the purchase.

The app is powered by klarna's product search MCP server, a model context protocol server which connects ChatGPT directly to Klarna's commerce data.

That network includes more than 100 million products and 400 million merchant listings across 13 markets.

Chris, how significant is it that Klarna is putting its app into ChatGPT and is this just another expected generative AI experience experiment?

Oh, man.

Yeah.

Was it just another expected generative AI experiment?

I actually think this moves really interesting and I'm not surprised that I think that given the conversation that you and I just had about what Google did last week and the reason I say that.

So I interviewed Ferhan Khan for my Investor Perspectives in Retail and the Consumer podcast.

It's coming out next week and he's from ubs.

He's a managing director at ubs and his job is to evaluate which tech he thinks he wants to bet on for the long run.

And he brought up, he brought up two points that I think were really interesting in that podcast and I encourage everyone to listen to it when we release it.

He said, like, some of the advantages he looks for are scale and also like moats and the moat being payments.

And so, for example, if I know my payment data can allow me to transact quickly via Klarna and that I want to pay via Klarna, that in and of itself could be a calculated step in my LLM discovery process.

And so Klarna, you know, is highlighting a marketplace of goods that are available.

It gives you great pricing data across all the retailers it works with.

So I don't know, Laura, that's a pretty compelling funneling point for me, which is why I, like, I've been very down on, on in app experiments, in LLMs on this show, but for this one, I'm, I'm kind of feeling a little bit different about it for that reason because, like, I could see like a, you know, some of the likes to pay on installments or, you know, installment financing.

Like, yeah, show me everything that's available and let's make this work and give me the best for my budget.

I, I think that's pretty compelling, especially if Klarna's marketplace is big enough and wide enough, which it might just be.

And they are super smart at Klarna.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I think this gets ultimately to, you know, exactly what we were talking about, about the importance of Payments and you know, the fact that our payment systems were built to keep robots out and now we're trying to reintroduce them.

And so the big recognizable payments related companies with consumer trust I think are really well positioned.

And you know, I think Klarna is increasingly one of those.

And you know, to your point about having the new, new technology solutions and then moats, Klarna was, has been out there trying to build a platform, you know, and kind of we've seen a lot of the payments companies you had Klarna, I think both Visa, definitely Visa and MasterCard maybe have thought about, you know, what, what does media look like as part of their solution if not it, you know, seems like a good idea because to your point, they have all this data on how people are spending money.

You know, I, I think the question that I just keep asking, once you're over the hurdle of the app within the LLM, which I will admit I still am skeptical about 100%, it's still, you know, which entity do consumers want to hand their payment authority to?

Klarna has scale both with the merchants and the consumers.

It makes me wonder if it is the wallet that consumers point their agents at.

You know, we still see a lot of strength for buy now, pay later, whether, you know, consumer advocates be damned.

It's still not great, but they still keep using it.

And so does it point toward a future then of where there's a few competing wallets?

You know, there's Google, there's Apple pay, there's Klarna.

And then who, which one is your default?

You know, whether we get into agents or it's just humans transacting on LLMs, whatever your default is, you know, matters a lot.

And so, you know, I, this leads to a tangent of, I don't, I still don't know where Apple's going to land in this.

To me, they were in the first or second row and, and to keep our metaphor going because they, they can see across our phones.

Wouldn't it be great if you had an agent?

They could see everything I was doing.

But you know, we're, we're not doing that with Apple.

It seems that the focus seems to be on the hardware.

So, but back from that, that tangent, it does seem like Klarna is fitting itself, trying to fit itself into that conversation about how payments work on these platforms.

Yeah, that's why I love doing this show because you got me rethinking and playing devil's advocate on my own opinion too, Laura, because a part of me Is like, well, if people wanted to do this with Karna, why wouldn't they just do it in the Karna app already?

Like, you know, why can't I just serve this if I'm Karna, can I just serve this up easier for them?

And if I leave the consumer proclivity is there, why aren't I just doing this already?

And so that's, that's.

And that I think goes back to what we don't know.

We don't know all the psychological reasons necessarily about why we choose to engage and actually consume products from the places we consume them from.

You know, which, you know, which is just something I'm going to start, I think my big takeaway from this podcast as far as I'm going to start thinking more about that because, yeah, like, why isn't this already happening if people want to do it?

And maybe we're just early on it.

I don't know.

But yeah, I don't know.

What do you think?

Right.

Well, I think, I think then we give Klarna credit for maybe the mark.

I will fully admit in the vein of saying things I don't know, I don't know what traffic is like to Klarna's marketplace or what uptake is like.

I haven't seen they talk about it a lot publicly.

To their credit, they may be saying, okay, we have this marketplace and we are going to be where consumers are.

And I think that's where the best thinking brands and retailers are.

How, how they're orienting their, you know, investment in technology right now is just follow the consumer and, and follow what the consumer is trying to do.

Maybe not necessarily exactly where they spend their time.

But I do think that's been an adage that through my career, you know, tried to follow.

It went back when CPG Brands said nobody will ever buy food on Amazon, not fresh food.

And we're still dealing with that.

But like nobody's going to buy their food on Amazon.

It's like, yeah, but 65% of them are there.

So like, don't you want to be there in case they do want to buy that?

So, you know, I, that's where I guess I have to give Klarna credit.

They're, they're just trying to be where, you know, everybody is.

And that seems to be what's guiding the successful retailers and brands right now.

Yeah, right.

And that always goes back to quote, I always screw up the quote too.

But like the near term technology, technological change always happens slower than we think it will.

But the longer term happens faster.

Right.

I think that's also the point you're getting at here, which is like we feel like we want this to happen fast, but it's probably just gonna take time and there's gonna be a lot of things we learn along the way.

All right, let's close it up with a fun story today, which is a story like this is a headline that I've quite of a magnitude I've never seen before, quite frankly.

And so headline number five is brought to you of course by the lock.

The Lock is a proven e grocery technology built by grocers for grocers.

Exactly the type of technology we like here at Omnitalk.

They unite proprietary software with right size automation to make sense same day delivery profitable.

To learn more visit Valoq.com that's V E L O Q.com Ross Stores I think crush it might be an understatement crushed its first quarter fiscal 2026 expectations and raised its full year outlook, reporting a 21% jump in total sales to $6 billion and a record 17% comparable store sales increase, the highest sales same store growth in the company's history according to the Wall Street Journal and company earnings releases.

CEO James Conroy said strong customer traffic was broad across income groups, age brackets and demographics, pointing to the continued tailwind Ross is seeing as inflation and economic uncertainty push shoppers toward off price retail.

Ross now plans to open approximately 110 new stores in fiscal 2026 and the company raised its full year EPS guidance and lifted its same store sales growth expectations to 6% to 7% for the full year.

Laura Ross's a 17 and a half sales comp or 17% sales comp is almost too ridiculous to say out loud and kudos to them for that.

So more importantly, what does it tell us about the consumer right now and will off price retail be the great unsung winner of this macroeconomic moment?

Yeah, I mean the comp is crazy but equally crazy to me is the idea of 110 new stores in a fiscal year in, in 2026.

You know this isn't 2010 or, or you know, even earlier than that.

And you know the truth is and this gets to the my overall point is that this is not just 2026.

They opened 90 stores last year according to retail dive.

You know, acquired some old Rite Aids I think in the west coast.

And so you know, I think it's easy to point to the economic environment is fueling this and you know, maybe the indicator of what's really going on that it seems to be hard to find otherwise.

And to that end, really, we're calling it unsung.

I think 17%.

It's not unsung at all.

It's well heard.

But I think what, what I do is, my immediate question is, well, so what.

What about its.

Its competitors or it's, you know, near.

Near competitors or adjacent companies and its market and TJX and Burlington, which I think are generally in that same bucket, are also, you know, announcing solid results.

Of course, TGX has been doing great forever.

So this tells me that it's.

Maybe it's not just this macroeconomic environment and tells me more about, I mean, yes, it's probably boosting it to that, you know, kind of obscene level.

But there's, I think, the underlying.

And the fact that they're opening stores, the underlying, you know, parts of their business are what is driving it.

And, you know, if I'm a retailer brand, it's.

I'm trying to figure out what this tells me what the consumer is looking for.

And so, you know, you think about a TJX experience or, you know, it seems like at Ross stores in person, experience, you treasure hunt, discovery, rotating assortment.

You know, I don't think Ross is expanding its store footprint blindly.

So I think that we should, you know, trust in that.

And so, you know, you have to wonder what is my version of that if I'm a retailer or a brand of, of creating a treasure hunt.

It's clear that this is the broad base.

It's not just macroeconomic.

So that becomes something that's a preference versus just, you know, I need to shop off price.

To me.

What do you think?

Yeah, I mean, I think what you're hitting at.

There's something in the water at Ross because, you know, while the, while the entire segment is working, they're gaining significant share in off price.

And the numbers.

These aren't easy comps, Laura, either.

I looked it up because I always, whenever I see a high common, I was like, what are they anniversarying?

Yeah, there's a retailer that announced last week where I was like, yeah, I'm not buying those results.

They had the easiest comp in a long time.

Like, they had a, they had a positive 3 in 2024 and a flat comp in 2025.

So, like, you know, you know, 17 growth.

I mean, that's what they did this year.

Yeah.

And so, like, and not surprisingly, they're doing what great retailers do.

They know they're doing something right.

And so they are going after it, when lightning happens, you gotta catch it in a bottle.

If you're a retailer.

That's like one axiom of retail.

And I can only imagine, Laura, how freaking fast everyone is working at Ross right now to capitalize on this trend because it only comes around once in a lifetime.

And when you get it, you go for it.

So, and the other points I'd make, I think there is another, there is going to be another unsung hero out of this macroeconomic condition.

It's a little bit of a pivot, but I think, yes, off price is going to win, but the other part of this is resale.

Resale is going to win.

And I think the, the, the Venn diagram of all these conditions that we're seeing in the off price segment is that my prediction is that very soon we're going to see a national branded retailer that makes its name name in resale with stores throughout the country because the macroeconomic conditions are perfect for it to happen.

It hasn't happened yet.

And I'm not talking about your grandmother's goodwill, which we all know.

I'm talking about something new, something inviting, something, well merchandised, something compelling, something that is omnichannel in nature.

Perhaps that just does resell in a different way because that is where the next economic rung will go.

Right.

There's off price.

But resell is even more advantageous economically than off price if you can do it right and find what you want.

So that's my prediction here especially we talk about, you know, the future doesn't happen.

You know, the future never happens as quickly as we think it will.

But I think when we look back 10 years from now, this will be the moment we said, oh, yep, that national resale brand, that is where it all started.

Yeah, I mean, I think resale, resale has proven to be an interesting space to watch.

And I think your point about a national chain and thinking about the in store experience matters a lot.

I feel like a lot of the digital solutions for resale maybe haven't caught on quite like we thought they would.

I don't think anybody's in bad shape, but it's maybe a little slower.

There's interesting, I think demographic trends in terms of a younger generation of shoppers that's, that's interested in vintage shopping and all of the sort of social implications of why resale is, is great.

Same generation is the reason we have Shein.

So, you know, take that with a grain of salt.

But I think it, that it will be an interesting space to watch And I've certainly seen a lot of innovation in the, in the IRL resale experience and a lot of enthusiasm for it.

So.

And that one, to me is the prototypical.

It's, it's probably always going to have a base that is, you know, economically based, economically, you know, oriented, but has a really broad appeal across income groups.

Yeah.

And there are some, there are some interesting franchises starting to pop up, like, to your point, like, if you can make the model work now, you should only be able to make it work even better in the future.

And you should actually able to be printing money from it too.

Right.

So, yeah, that's, that's my other, you know, kind of tangential takeaway that I get from this headline, which I think is interesting.

All right, well, let's go to the lightning round.

Laura, let's close out today's show.

It was Memorial Day this past weekend, which means summer is officially here.

What, in your opinion, Laura, is the single most underrated summer road trip destination in America?

And why?

Well, I have two answers for this.

Admittedly, they're both in the Midwest.

You know, my caveat is that I, my experiences do not span the entire continental U.S. so I'm going with what I know.

The first is southwest Michigan.

You know, it's likely people from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan will say, this is not indurated.

And everybody knows about it.

But I just, in the last 10 years or so have started to go to Great Lakes beaches.

And they're, they're awesome.

You know, you're, you're, you're on Great Lakes too, so you're not unfamiliar with this idea.

But southwest Michigan has wineries.

There's a lot of other charming development along the main drags.

It gets more populous as you go further north.

And there's some more established, what I would call beach towns.

But down about two and a half hours from where we are in Indiana, right over the border.

It's really a great vacation time.

So I would highly endorse that.

And then the other may not be great for summer.

It might be a little too hot.

But it's Red River Gorge in Kentucky.

We actually went.

Red River Gorge.

That's a real place.

Red River Gorge.

Not a place in a Clint Eastwood movie.

It's a real place.

No, no, it's a real place.

We went a few years ago.

Again, the community of rock climbing people, rock climbers will say this is also well known.

It's a canyon system.

And I, I had no idea it was there.

It's, I feel it's Almost national parks level scenery and rocks.

I'm someone who I. I like rocks in my national parks.

That.

The.

The Southwest is my favorite.

So it might get a little hot in the summer.

We might be entering maybe the.

The end of your really comfortable time there.

But we had a really great time.

More of a long weekend trip, I would say, when we went in the fall a few years ago.

Okay.

All right, nice.

So you're a rock climber.

That's what I'm.

That's what I'm hearing.

I was gonna say I should clear.

I am not.

We did not rock climb, but we.

Don't go on belay or whatever.

It is great.

There's great hiking, but the people who love rock climbing love doing it there.

All right.

Okay, guys.

So you're.

You're promoting it for them.

That's what you say?

Yeah, yeah.

And for, you know, if you just want to kind of hang out and.

And look at some.

Some great scenery.

Look at some rocks.

Yeah, exactly.

So my retort to that is.

Is that are there summer destinations that you think are overrated?

Oh, man, that's a.

That's a tough one.

You know?

So basically, anything that requires a hike, as loyal omnitok fans will know, because I loathe hiking.

I hate it when my white wife loves hiking, and every time she makes me do it, I'm like, no, no, no, I can't do it.

So I think on that front, I think it cancels out the Grand Canyon, Moab, Zion national park, all those places.

But in fairness, those are all beautiful.

I don't know.

I. I went to Jackson Hole when I was a kid, and I was like, yeah, it's kind of overrated.

It's just kind of poshy and overrated.

I think that would be the one thing that would come to my mind.

But I don't know.

I mean, the.

The Corn palace in South Dakota.

You know, I don't know if I. I don't know if I need to see that in my life.

No offense to South Dakotans, but yes.

Right.

Right.

Yes.

You know, it's kind of wall drug, you know, it's.

It's kitchen, you know?

Yeah.

You know, that's what comes to mind for me.

All right.

The Indy 500 took place this past weekend in your home city of Indianapolis.

What is one word you would use to describe Indianapolis during the Indy 500?

Well, I have to steal from the.

The trademark slogan about the Indy 500, which is the greatest spectacle in racing, and say that it's a spectacle the race itself is, of course, a spectacle.

And there's a lot of.

If you've ever watched the pre.

The pre Game, the pre race on tv, if you haven't been to the race, you know what it is.

But I think what people may not realize is that the entire month of May is festive in Indianapolis.

And so while it.

Everything that happens at the race is second to none and truly unique, you can get what I call the vibes and join the festivity in a lot of different ways.

There's lots of chances to go and be at the track, hear the cars, watch the cars, you know, just kind of join in on all the fun throughout the month.

So I. I would really jump on the bandwagon of calling it a spectacle for the whole city.

A spectacle.

So you like the rev of that engine, Laura?

That's what you're saying?

You like the real.

It's a distinctive sound.

I really.

It's hard to describe if you haven't been to the race.

I think most people justifiably.

Car racing isn't like the most exciting sport except for, like, the beginning and the end.

I say this is a sports fan, but.

But I think the.

The sound of it is unmistakable.

And when they're going really fast, it's like you're watching, you know, the X Wings in Star Wars.

It's pretty amazing stuff.

So that's.

That's my endorsement.

It's a spectacle and.

But you don't have to take part in, you know, the one thing you can.

You can be part of it in lots of different ways.

Well, you had me at X Wing, so.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

All right, well, so our last question.

I know you're a movie buff.

Summer movies, 2026.

What are.

What are you looking forward to?

Speaking of X Wings.

Yeah.

Well, I just saw the Mandalorian Grogu, which was actually better than my expectations.

Have you seen that one?

Are you going to go see?

I have not.

I have not seen it.

There's a chance.

Big baby Yoda fans in our house.

So.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was better than I expected.

My wife and I both liked it.

We both.

My kids were like, yeah, it's all right, dad.

But I was like, yeah, that was really good.

I liked it a lot.

And did you watch the whole.

Did you watch Mandalorian also?

Yes, yes.

Okay.

All right.

Yes.

Yes.

All right.

So that's part of it.

Yeah.

100%.

Yeah.

No, so, yeah, I was deep, you know, steeped into it and.

Right, right.

I play Star Wars, Galaxy of Heroes every day and a half for the last seven years for those listening.

But okay.

But yeah, no, the movie, I probably most.

I can't ever remember the name of it though.

And I feel like such a, like kind of poser, movie buff, nerd.

But the movie, the Steven Spielberg movie that's coming out.

Oh, the aliens one?

Yeah, yeah.

I can't remember what it's called.

I was.

Oh my gosh, the Arrival.

But like, but like, yeah, if Spielberg can give us back what made him great, like with a movie like that, I'm pretty, you know, if he can get into the Jaws, the Close Encounters, the Poltergeist realm again, like I'd be pretty pumped for that.

Like, I feel like, I feel like my, my mind, my psyche needs some Steven Spielberg great scare, you know, to it this summer.

I think it'll be fabulous.

Yeah, yeah.

Emily Blunt's in it.

Yeah, it's.

I'm totally blanking on it.

It's something day.

Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it's.

What is.

Yeah, it's like announcement day or something.

I don't know.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know what I was talking about about, right?

Yes, I do know what you're talking about.

Looks terrifying for me, but it does remind me that my 5 year old son is more interested in really scary movies than I would have thought.

And I think the next one we're gonna watch is Jurassic park, which I find to be terrifying and a horrifying movie.

I mean, thought there'd be more hijinks.

It's just plain terrifying the entire time.

And so it'll be a real test of whether he can withstand it.

Speaking of field.

Okay, that's interesting.

I didn't know we're going to go there.

Okay.

Yeah.

Jurassic Park.

So that gets, that gets you going.

That gets, that gets Laura's tension up.

Oh well, it's so scary.

I mean, I think I thought my, my secret is that I didn't see Jurassic park until I was an adult.

I didn't see it when I was a kid.

I'm not sure if maybe I just was too afraid or what it was.

So I saw it and I just had the impression there was going to be a much larger percentage of sort of dinosaur hijinks.

And then, you know, some scary stuff in the back third maybe.

Right, but it's like three quarters scary, you know, Tyrannosaurus rex, the, the, the vibrating water stuff and very little Samuel Jackson, you know, in comparison.

So I, Yeah, so I, I just remember finishing that movie and thinking Wow.

I. I did not know.

This is going to be so terrifying, so.

Well, the tbd.

I'll report back next time on whether my.

My son comes out of it unscathed.

I've never.

I've never heard anyone describe Jurassic park that way.

It's so amazing.

What.

What scares us as individuals relative to one another.

You know, like you said, I think it's.

It's very tense the whole time.

Oh, yeah, it's very intense.

Yeah.

I thought there'd be a little more, you know.

Yeah.

The water bouncing up in the car is.

That's such a great visual, that guy.

That's why he's so good.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly.

So good.

He's the master.

That's why I'm hoping we can get the master back at his craft again.

That would be fantastic.

Not that.

Not to say he hasn't done great stuff, but, like.

No, I want.

I want him to do that again.

That would be great.

All right, well, today's podcast was produced with the help and support, of course, of Ella.

Sir Yard Producer Ella, come on in here.

I'm not even going to try to guess this week because this week was.

This week was interesting.

There's just so much happening and changing that I can't even predict where your head is going to go anymore.

So what.

What.

What headline, which discussion won the week for you this week, Producer Ella?

Yeah, well, before I jump into that, Chris, you'll be shocked to know that I know the name of the movie you guys were talking about, and it's Disclosure Day.

Disclosure day.

Disclosure.

There it is.

No, but the winner this week is Radar Reaching unicorn status, and for two reasons.

First of all, unicorn status.

I mean, that might be the most amazing business term ever.

Obsessed with that.

Yeah, Right.

The second is I'm just really excited to hear what Spencer has to say next week.

I feel like it's incredibly timely, and it'll just be interesting to hear from the man himself about the ins and outs of the future of physical AI in retail.

So this is my plug to stay tuned for next week.

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah.

Well, nicely done, Ella.

Nicely done.

We didn't even talk about that, but, yeah, that's great.

Yeah, no, we're.

Yeah, we're gonna.

Yeah, we're gonna be interviewing him very shortly, and I. I.

Every time I interview Spencer, too, I have no idea which way he's gonna go or what curveballs he's gonna throw me, too.

So this one's gonna be a fun one, but we got to keep it to five minutes, though.

Roughly.

So we'll see what.

See what we can do.

So.

All right, well, that closes us up.

Happy birthday today to Benny Beldman, Joseph Bines, and to Mr. Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettney.

And remember, if you can only read or listen one retail blog in the business, make it omnitalk.

Our Fast five podcast is the quickest, fastest rundown of all the top news.

And our daily newsletter, the Retail Daily Minute, tells you all you need to know each day to stay on top of your game as a retail executive and also regularly feature special content that is exclusive to us and that, as you can tell, producer at Ella and I take a lot of pride in doing just for you.

Thanks as always for listening in.

Please remember to like or leave us a review wherever you happen to listen to your podcast or on YouTube.

You can follow us today by simply going to YouTube.com omnitalkretail Laura, if people want to get in touch with you, if they're like, hey, I want to get to know Laura.

I want to ask her some questions, get some advice, what's the best way for them to do that?

You can find me on LinkedIn.

Laura Kennedy.

I'm the one in Indianapolis so that, that there's a few of them on there, you may not be surprised to find out, but that's me.

Yes, yes, yes.

It's kind of a popular name, especially for our generation.

All right, so until next week, and on behalf of all of us at Omnitalk Retail, as always, be careful out there.