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Technology
RAI’s ReTechCon 2026 Brings Retail and Technology Leaders Together to Shape the Future of Intelligent, Automated and Unified Retail
RAI ReTechCon2026_LtoR_Kumar Rajagopalan – CEO of RAI, Rajesh Jain – MD & CEO, Lacoste India, and Sanjay Vakharia – CEO, Spykar Lifestyles
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], September 29: The Retailers Association of India (RAI) successfully hosted the 20th edition of the Retail Technology Conclave, ReTechCon 2026, on September 23–24 at JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar. As India’s premier retail technology forum, the event brought together CEOs, CIOs, technology partners, and industry leaders to explore how intelligence, automation, and unified commerce are transforming retail, while driving smarter decision-making, seamless customer experiences, and a more connected, future-ready retail ecosystem.
ReTechCon 2026 offered an immersive experience that brought together the depth of expert-led discussions with the scale and diversity of a premier industry conclave. Participants gained valuable insights into emerging technologies, evolving global trends, and innovative solutions shaping the future of retail, with a focus on driving smarter, more connected, and future-ready businesses.
Speaking about ReTechCon 2026, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, Retailers Association of India (RAI), said, “Retail has spent 50years organising itself around five Ps — people, product, place, promotion, price. Technology has quietly added two more: pace and personalisation. AI is no longer a pilot project sitting in some retailers’ innovation labs — it is already reshaping how customers are found, how products are tracked, and how every transaction becomes a data point. ReTechCon 2026 exists to have that conversation honestly, not as a sales pitch, but as an industry working out together what comes next.”
Saloni Khosla, Vice President, Pepperfry:
“In a category like furniture, technology has to solve for a very specific problem — the customer can’t just add it to cart the way they would a t-shirt. They need to see it in their space, trust the delivery timeline, trust the return process if it doesn’t fit. Adoption for us has never been about chasing whatever’s trending. It’s been about asking which technology actually removes hesitation at the exact moment the customer is deciding, and ignoring the rest.”
Chirag Kenia, Founder, Urban Platter:
“Every retailer today has access to roughly the same technology. What separates the ones who actually benefit from it is whether they’ve rebuilt their processes around it, or just bolted it onto the old way of doing things. We learned that the hard way — buying a tool is the easy part. Changing how your team actually works with it is where most of the value gets lost or won.”
Karan Singla, COO, The Sleep Company:
“The retailers who are winning right now aren’t the ones with the most advanced stack. They’re the ones who adopted early enough to make mistakes while the stakes were still small. Waiting for a technology to mature before you touch it sounds prudent, but by the time it’s ‘mature,’ your competitor has three years of data and muscle memory you don’t have.”
At ReTechCon 2026, distinguished speakers shared their invaluable insights, enriching the discussions with diverse perspectives on retail technology.
Other notable speakers at ReTechCon 2026 included leading retail and technology experts such as Anil Menon, CIO, LuLu Group India; Neeraj Nagpal, CBO, Raymond; Chippy Mehta, Co-Founder, Bombay Shirt Company; Kunal Mehta, CIO, Arvind Fashions Ltd.; Chirag Kenia, Founder, Urban Platter; Vinod Kapote, Head – IT, Trent Ltd.; and Ranjit Satyanath, Chief Information Officer, Vijay Sales.
Discussions at ReTechCon 2026 explored the key trends and technological developments reshaping the retail landscape, offering valuable perspectives on the evolving industry and emerging opportunities. Key topics of discussion included:
- Who’s Shopping For Your Customer? — How autonomous agents and voice interfaces are starting to shop on the customer’s behalf, and what that does to the traditional browse-and-buy journey.
- Screen To Storefront — What direct-to-customer brands learn about their own customers the moment they open a physical door.
- From Followers To Buyers — How D2C brands convert community trust into sales without cheapening the community that built the trust.
- The Tech Adoption Gap — A reality check on the distance between what retailers claim to have deployed and what’s actually running on the floor.
- Your Customers Are The Content — How user-generated content and community turned into a genuine growth engine, not just a marketing tactic.
- The Sale Isn’t Over At Checkout — How trust, confidence, and preventable returns are all the same problem viewed from different points in the customer journey.
About ReTechCon
ReTechCon stands as the sole knowledge dissemination platform concentrating on the technological aspects of the retail sector. Incepted 12 years ago, the platform has flourished to become India’s largest gathering of CIOs/CTOs, technology service providers, and mavens in the retail technology sphere. Its mission is to guide retailers in keeping pace with the swift technological transitions and adapting for their enterprises’ and customers’ advantage. Visit www.retechcon.com for more information.
About RAI
The Retailers Association of India is the national body representing India’s retail industry across all channels and formats, from large format and specialty retail to e-commerce, quick commerce, and connected commerce businesses. RAI works with governments, regulators, and industry stakeholders to enable a competitive, innovation-friendly retail ecosystem. Through policy advocacy, industry events, research, and learning programmes, RAI builds the conditions for retail to grow, invest, and create employment at scale. India’s retail future is connected. RAI is building for it.
Visit: www.rai.net.in | Follow on Twitter: @rai_india
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National
Prime Minister inaugurates and lays foundation stones for projects worth over Rs 35,000 crore; highlights AI, skills, and Vadodara’s evolution as an industrial hub
Vadodara (Gujarat) [India], September 9: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday called upon India’s youth to prepare themselves for the rapidly emerging opportunities in Artificial Intelligence (AI), while highlighting the importance of skills, innovation and technology in building a developed India.
Addressing the ‘NaMo for Viksit Bharat’ programme at the Pavilion Ground of Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Prime Minister Modi said the coming generation must be prepared for AI and develop skills that can be continuously upgraded as technology and global requirements evolve. He emphasised that AI would not remain limited to the technology sector, but would create opportunities across agriculture, healthcare, manufacturing and robotics.
The Prime Minister’s interaction with the youth came alongside a major development push for Gujarat, with him inaugurating, dedicating and laying the foundation stones for projects worth more than ₹35,000 crore in Vadodara. The projects span railways, roads and other infrastructure, strengthening connectivity and logistics in the region.
A major highlight of the visit was the completion of the 2,800-km Dedicated Freight Corridor, which Prime Minister Modi described as a historic achievement for 21st-century India and a major milestone for Gati Shakti and the country’s logistics transformation.
During his address, the Prime Minister also traced Vadodara’s journey from an education and industrial centre to an important hub for modern manufacturing and emerging technologies. He highlighted the city’s evolution across textiles, tiles, oil and petrochemicals and its growth as a major MSME hub. He also referred to the city’s role in India’s aerospace manufacturing journey, including the C-295 aircraft programme.
Linking Vadodara’s industrial journey with the opportunities ahead, Prime Minister Modi said the convergence of education, skills and industry would be crucial for India’s next phase of development. He urged young people to make the most of the current period, describing it as an important phase for India’s youth and calling upon them to contribute towards the goal of a developed India by 2047.
The event also saw a strong response from the young audience, with around 6,000 students, young professionals, social media influencers and other participants attending the youth-focused programme at MSU’s Pavilion Ground.
The Prime Minister’s Vadodara visit thus combined a major infrastructure milestone with a strong focus on the country’s next generation, placing AI, skills, education, industry and youth participation at the centre of the Viksit Bharat agenda.
For Vadodara, the event also underlined the city’s growing role in connecting its traditional strengths in education and industry with emerging opportunities in technology, advanced manufacturing and the new-age economy.
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