Articles
Perspectives from RTM Nexus and our community of retail, brand and technology leaders. Browse every article below, newest first, or search the archive.
-
AI Can Tell us What Consumers Want. But Can It Tell Us What They’ll Want Next?
By Lara E. Rothberg | A shopper asks an AI agent to find the best pair of running shoes. The agent compares products, reads…
-
AI Agents Need Product Managers, Not Just Prompt Engineers
By Hemang Upadhyay, Strategic Product & AI Leader, RTM Insider | Production agents are products, with users, permissions, failure modes, and business outcomes. The…
-
The Next AI Reliability Metric is Reversibility
By Hemang Upadhyay, Strategic Product & AI Leader, RTM Insider | Most AI reliability conversations still fixate on accuracy. Accuracy matters, but for agents…
-
Beyond Personalization Theater: Why Customer Trust, Organizational Agility, and Execution Are the Real Growth Engines
Personalization technology creates growth only when organizations pair it with customer trust, faster execution, cross-channel alignment, and genuinely useful experiences.
-
In Retail, Trust Is the Scarcest Resource in the Stack
By Jiaqi Qian, GP Singh | The most expensive failure in retail analytics doesn’t look like a failure. Dashboards load. Reports ship on schedule.…
-
The Patience Shift: Why Leaders Must Guide, Not Just Do
Early in my executive career, I believed leadership was about speed and execution. When a problem arose, my instinct was simple: step in, take…
-
July Mixer Recap: Merciv, Trasix, And A New Kind of Meetup
A recap of the RTM Nexus July mixer, featuring Merciv, Trasix, and the launch of a new meetup series for retail, brand, consulting, investment,…
-
The Definitive Retail and E-Commerce Playbook: 19 Essential 2026 Titles
A curated 2026 reading list for retail and e-commerce leaders covering AI, trust, customer experience, distribution, innovation, local identity, and organizational agility.
-
The Best Founders Don’t Avoid Failure. They Expect It.
Musely founder Jack Jia’s story shows why strong founders treat failure as tuition, use curiosity to challenge assumptions, and hire for drive and problem-solving.
-
The Efficiency Illusion: When Cutting Costs Costs You Customers
Customer service automation should remove routine friction, not trap people in dead ends. The strongest systems pair fast automation with a clear path to…
-
The Restructuring Paradox: Why Layoffs Rarely Fix What’s Broken
Layoffs rarely repair an organization on their own. Transparent leadership, executive ownership, support for remaining teams, and protected customer relationships determine whether a restructuring…
-
Why the Retail In-Store Experience Still Comes First
Retail’s strongest in-store experiences combine reliable service, knowledgeable people, immersive brand moments, and measurement that goes beyond a single transaction.
Stay Ahead of the Curve: Get Our Curated List of 100+ Conferences
We attend and activate dozens of top retail, tech and media conferences each year, and we’ve pulled together a curated list of the ones worth knowing about. Upcoming dates are also on our Industry Events page.
If you’re planning to attend or sponsor a show, you may also be interested in our Pre-Conference Activation, a turnkey way to spark high-impact conversations before the show floor even opens.
Want help planning your presence? Book a quick call and we’ll walk you through what’s working best right now.