CDW Summit 2026: How AI Is Affecting the Retail Customer Experience

The CDW Summit 2026 was billed as the “2 Smartest Days in Tech,” and CDW subject-matter experts were on hand to deliver on that promise. As with similar events this year, artificial intelligence dominated nearly every session, presentation and side conversation. Its influence is undeniable no matter which industry is the focus of the discussion, and each vertical faces its own challenges and opportunities as a result. In retail, CDW’s Andy Szanger and Jared Feldman shared how AI is enabling store associates to provide the level of service customers have come to expect after years of shopping online and through apps. It’s allowing new levels of personalization that are raising the bar for customer experience. But AI runs on huge amounts of data, which can be costly, and it’s forcing business leaders to make new decisions about where to run AI projects to optimize costs.