There is a lot of buzz in the retail world on the transformative powers that could be unleashed by Agentic AI in retail and beyond. Just a simple search of Agentic AI, produces 21.8 million hits on Google!

In the case of retail and OSA, agentic AI, could be imagined as a series of multiple autonomous replenishment agents, that instead of waiting for a nightly batch job or manager input. could monitor shelf-level data and store traffic in real-time, automatically placing replenishment orders based on actual inventory depletion, balancing stock levels across stores and warehouses and coordinate with suppliers dynamically to ensure just-in-time restocking. And more!

The "promise" being talked about is that Agentic AI in this retail context would be like a proactive problem solving tool and that when issues do arise — like delayed shipments, supplier constraints, or unexpected demand — agentic AI doesn’t just alert, it investigates root causes, suggests or even executes mitigation steps (rerouting inventory, suggesting substitute SKUs, etc.) and communicates with relevant human teams or other agents

But how much of all the above is true, possible, scalable and business case friendly?

In this, retailer, CPG and academic only meeting, we will start with a review lead by academia on what they believe is meant by Agentic AI, what is possible, what it promises and how retailers can get started. This will be followed by retailers in the working group sharing updates from their business.