“The future of retail is not the biggest, but the most agile”, says IRRAH Tech group expert after participation in NRF 2026

The 2026 edition of NRF, the world's largest retail event, showed executives, investors and technology leaders that in the new cycle of global commerce, competitive advantage no longer comes from the size of the company, but from its ability to react quickly, integrate data and turn technology into a result.

“Big companies have already understood that AI needs to be embedded in the business, working behind the scenes, solving real problems and supporting” decisions, said Cesar Baleco, CEO of IRRAH Tech group, a Parana company with global operations in automation and artificial intelligence solutions aimed at operational efficiency. “In this new game, the future is not the biggest, but the most agile.The focus now is on how to automate processes, reduce waste, predict demand, customize offers and accelerate business decisions in real time”.

The reasoning echoes among executives who followed the global schedule. For Siro Canabarro, CEO of Tecinco, IRRAH Tech partner at the event, “if you do not yet use AI, you are being used by it, and technology becomes a central asset of competitiveness”.

The change in perspective appeared in the stands and lectures of big techs and market leaders present at NRF, and AI is no longer seen as a marketing supplement to assume essential operational functions. This includes: real-time consumer behavior analysis; identification of needs before they are even explained; contextual mapping of the purchase journey; and demand prediction and inventory optimization.

“We are no longer dealing only with operational AI. It supports human decisions by crossing large volumes of data to generate predictions that translate into more” efficiency, explained Baleco.

It is a trend: in retail, relationship models based on invasive communication, such as massive push campaigns, tend to lose effectiveness in the face of approaches that combine data-based personalization and personalized automation.“A IA begins to identify not only what the consumer buys, but when, why and in what social and economic context. This allows creating more efficient buying journeys, less dependent on discounts and more oriented to real conversion”, highlights the CEO of IRRAH Tech.

The company has been investing in infrastructure that allows companies to operate AI in an integrated way to their business systems, from CRM to ERP, from financial service. At the end of 2025, the group launched the Model Context Protocol (MCP), a standard that facilitates communication between AI agents and corporate software, eliminating one of the biggest barriers to large-scale automation: the fragmentation of systems.

In practice, this allows companies to connect artificial intelligence to their operational processes without having to rebuild the entire technology architecture, which reduces costs, implementation time and dependence on specialized teams.

“O What MCP does is turn AI into pluggable infrastructure, something that it can scale quickly as the business grows or change”, explains Baleco.

The result of this transformation is a market where agility, integration and adaptability weigh more than size, legacy or brand power.

“A NRF 2026 teaches us to be less dazzled by promises, more focused on return on technology, productivity and financial impact, and shows that speed makes a difference. Therefore, shortening this path with technological partners will make all the difference this year”, he concludes.