How agentic AI robots are redefining retail store experiences

Why companies need Frontier Transformation

Today's business environment demands more with less. Organizations must deliver better personalization, higher volume, and increasingly complex insights while operating with greater efficiency. The gap between stakeholder expectations and what teams can realistically deliver continues to widen.

Microsoft's recent insights on Frontier Transformation address these challenges by embedding AI into the core of operations. Frontier Firms are organizations that treat AI as a foundational capability and are already transforming how they work.

Frontier Firms don't simply automate; they adapt. By adding adaptive intelligence to existing systems, they unlock three advantages:

• Awareness: Systems perceive conditions in real time.
• Reasoning: They prioritize tasks based on business needs.
• Interaction: They communicate in natural, intuitive ways.

Early adopters see small improvements compound quickly. These include faster service, more accurate recommendations, fewer equipment surprises, and clearer insights into peak times and bottlenecks. As agentic AI matures, companies can offer guidance and assistance that feels intuitive. Employees gain more time for high-value work, and leaders gain deeper visibility into operations.

Frontier Transformation is more than a technology upgrade. It represents a shift in operating model. Organizations that treat AI as a foundation will lead the next wave of business innovation.

Agentic AI is reshaping customer experience

This shift is already visible in retail, where agentic robots are transforming customer experience and improving operational performance. Customers expect fast, personalized service, yet retailers often face staffing constraints, training gaps, and unpredictable demand.

Industry studies show:

• 75% of consumers are more likely to purchase when recommendations feel relevant.
• Nearly 40% of in-store complaints relate to wait times.
• Inventory inaccuracies account for 4-8% of lost sales.

These challenges reflect a broader pattern across frontline-heavy industries. Customer expectations continue to rise, and employee workloads grow more complex.

Microsoft's Work Trend Index reinforces this dynamic. Frontline employees say AI tools that reduce repetitive tasks, surface real-time information, and streamline customer interactions have the biggest impact on satisfaction and performance. As organizations integrate adaptive intelligence into daily workflows, these benefits build on each other and help accelerate Frontier Transformation.

Recent industry research shows that retail and consumer packaged goods organizations are generating significant business value from generative and agentic AI, with early deployments consistently delivering multi-times ROI and accelerating impact across frontline operations.

Agentic AI creates new possibilities for stores. Instead of relying on rigid automation, it blends environmental awareness, adaptive reasoning, and conversational interaction to help teams respond in real time.

ADAM: From beverage service to customer care

Richtech Robotics ' ADAM beverage robot illustrates how quickly agentic systems can enhance the customer experience. Richtech, based in Las Vegas, designs and commercializes autonomous robotic solutions for hospitality, retail, logistics, and manufacturing. Through a close, hands-on collaboration between Richtech's engineering team and the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs, the two companies jointly developed new adaptive intelligence for ADAM-transforming it into a conversational, context-aware assistant powered by Microsoft Azure AI. These enhancements enabled ADAM to move beyond routine beverage preparation and support richer customer interactions.

Today, ADAM:

• Adjusts recommendations based on weather, time of day, and promotions.
• Responds naturally to customer requests like "less sweet," "extra ice," or "what's seasonal?"
• Notifies staff about ingredient or equipment issues before problems occur.
• Uses vision models to maintain speed and quality during busy periods.

Retailers report smoother operations and better customer feedback. ADAM is context aware, conversational, and reliable-qualities customers consistently reward and areas where AI has historically struggled.

While ADAM is a retail example, the pattern extends far beyond beverage automation. Across logistics, healthcare, hospitality, and manufacturing, Frontier Firms are adding ambient intelligence and agentic workflows to physical operations and seeing meaningful gains as a result.

Unlocking retail transformation at scale

Once retailers see how intelligence enhances a single customer interaction, the next question naturally follows: where else can this help? Building on the advancements made with ADAM, Richtech Robotics is extending these capabilities through its Agentic Store initiative. By applying vision, voice, and agentic reasoning to common in-store tasks, the initiative helps retailers address friction points that slow down the shopping experience.

Examples under development include:

• Robots that guide customers to products.
• Systems that detect empty shelves or misplaced items.
• Voice-enabled, in-aisle assistance.
• Real-time adjustments based on foot traffic or local events.

This approach does not require heavy hardware investments. These workflows are software-driven and build on existing store infrastructure. It reflects how Frontier Firms drive transformation by spreading intelligence across the ecosystem rather than upgrading a single process at a time.

Retailers gain clearer visibility into peak demand, customer behavior, product movement, and service quality without increasing manual tracking. As one store manager described it, "it feels like having a second set of eyes that never gets tired."

Convenient, high-quality service becomes a blueprint for store-wide intelligence. In the coming years, a clear difference will emerge between retailers that treat AI as a tool and those that treat it as a foundation. The latter will set the pace for the industry.

Steps toward Frontier Transformation

Agentic AI gives retailers a practical and achievable path forward. It elevates customer experience, reduces operational strain, and creates the foundation for smarter and more adaptive stores. Organizations that embrace Frontier Transformation position themselves as Frontier Firms, ready to scale faster, work more intelligently, and unlock new value through the combination of human judgment and AI-driven insight.

The journey begins with small, strategic steps and a bold vision for what is possible. To explore the broader business impact of AI across frontline and customer-facing roles, review Microsoft's Work Trend Index: The year the Frontier Firm is born.

Explore how organizations are transforming with AI, and learn how you can build your own generative AI proof of concept with the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs.