Jewellery retailer Pandora teams with InPost UK on parcel locker delivery option for online shoppers
FT Live Future of Retail
Executives from Pandora, The Cotswold Company and Kingfisher shared where they are placing their strategic bets on artificial intelligence (AI) deployments to get the most bang for their investment buck at the FT Live Future of Retail event in London last month.
According to Catarina Runa Miranda, Global AI Director and London Digital Hub Lead at Pandora: “Our big bet is on AI-based story telling.”
“We believe it’s a big opportunity for us online via an AI assistant,” she said. “In Australia we’ve already rolled out an AI powered fully immersive online experience – not just a chatbot – that will help customers choose the most appropriate charm for when they are building their ‘bracelet story’.”
For context, Miranda explained that Pandora’s customers tend to buy a bracelet from them and personalise it with charms that hang off it that are specific to their lives, whether that is a music charm, a sporting symbol and so on.
“We ask who are you buying this for and why? Do you, or they, like gardening and so on, as we can then suggest specific charms,” she commented. “In the future, we hope to roll out this online AI assistant service globally and deepen the experience with an avatar as well.”
The agentic AI experience, where agents help you, was much discussed at FT Live Future of Retail 2025.
Fellow panellist, Mohsen Ghasempour is Chief AI Officer at Kingfisher, which owns the B&Q and Screwfix DIY brands in the UK and Castorama in France, and shared an update about its Hello Casto tool. This AI powered public facing virtual DIY assistant was claimed as a world first upon its launch and Ghasempour explained: “It’s now had 350,000 chatbot conversations by H1 2025 [and is therefore learning and improving all the time].”
RTIH covered it and Kingfisher’s extensive over-arching AI programme previously. “Today, we’ve got 45 people working on this programme,” added Ghasempour, at FT Live 2025, as he agreed that it’s time to place big strategic bets on AI technology. The time for pilots and small scale experimentation has passed.
According to Ralph Tucker, CEO at The Cotswolds Company, which is a UK-based digitally led premium handcrafted furniture and homewares brand, its big bet on AI is initially in the corporate treasury and supply chain arena, where it can help foresee sales, feeding into purchasing and effective cash management and other activities in its operations.
“We are looking at using AI to improve our forecasting accuracy,” explained Tucker, as he believes it could be really helpful there.
“At a boardroom level we are looking at AI as a strategic investment now,” added Tucker, while expanding that he is also very interested in Gen AI powered large language models (LLMs) and also in how Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) search will change traditional SEO informed approaches to marketing.
“We realised three years ago that we needed to lean into AI and the business has now adopted it enterprise wide as something to be aware of [and to look for ‘wins’ in],” explained Tucker during the panel discussion that also included Dan Czasznicki, Head of Retail and CPG, Digital Experience at Adobe.
He advocated for “brand affinity” in this new AI era that is dawning as a way to retain the attention of your customer in an increasingly digital age where GEO and ecosystems could look to lock-in their attention to the detriment of the retailer.
RTIH AI in Retail Awards
RTIH proudly presents the first edition of its AI in Retail Awards, sponsored by 3D Cloud and EdTech Innovation Hub.
This is now open for entries. Deadline for submissions is Friday, 5th December. It’s free to enter and you can do so across multiple categories.
Check out categories and entry forms here.
As we witness a digital transformation revolution across all channels, AI tools are reshaping the omnichannel game, from personalising customer experiences to optimising inventory, uncovering insights into consumer behaviour, and enhancing the human element of retailers’ businesses.
With 2025 set to be the year when AI and especially gen AI shake off the ‘heavily hyped’ tag and become embedded in retail business processes, our newly launched awards celebrate global technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world and the resulting benefits for retailers, shoppers and employees.
Our 2025 winners will be those companies who not only recognise the potential of AI, but also make it usable in everyday work – resulting in more efficiency and innovation in all areas.
Winners will be announced at an evening event at The Barbican in Central London on Thursday, 29th January. This will kick off with a drinks reception in the stunning Conservatory, followed by a three course meal, and awards ceremony in the Garden Room.
