Strategies for Brick-and-Mortar Resilience in the Age of AI
Insights from the Leadership Dialogue held on 30 January 2026
Singapore’s brick-and-mortar retail sector is entering a defining phase. Rising labour costs, structural market shifts, and intensifying global competition are converging at the same moment that artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming operationally viable at scale. For senior leaders, the question is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how to do so in a way that delivers measurable business outcomes without disrupting core operations.
Insights from the January 2026 Leadership Dialogue reveal a consistent pattern across organisations: while awareness of AI is high, operational readiness remains uneven. Most enterprises are still experimenting at the edges without embedding it into the frontline workflows where productivity gains and customer experience improvements are realised.
The dialogue surfaced three critical realities for leadership teams:
AI ROI is constrained by foundations, not ambition.
Fragmented data, legacy systems, and unclear ownership continue to limit the scalability of AI initiatives. Without addressing these fundamentals, even advanced models struggle to generate sustained value.
Execution speed matters more than perfection.
Organisations making progress are starting with focused pilots in high-volume, labour-intensive areas, learning quickly, and scaling pragmatically
AI transformation is a people challenge as much as a technology one.
Successful adoption depends on empowering frontline teams, appointing working-level AI champions, and aligning global governance with local experimentation.
Looking ahead to 2026, the most resilient retailers will treat AI not as a standalone initiative, but as a core operational capability. Achieving this requires a clear understanding of organisational readiness, disciplined prioritisation, and a roadmap that bridges strategy with execution.
The dialogue offered leaders a grounded view of the current landscape, practical lessons from peers, and a framework to assess where their organisation stands and what it will take to move from experimentation to enterprise impact.
To support organisations in moving beyond interest and pilots, we apply a structured AI Readiness Framework designed to diagnose capability gaps and guide action across five key business drivers. (Strategy & Leadership, Data & Infrastructure, Processes & Use Cases, People & Capabilities, Governance & Risk), get in touch with AI Practice by Beyondsoft today.
