What Will Still Transform Retail in 2026: Trends for the Second Half of the Year Comments Off on What Will Still Transform Retail in 2026: Trends for the Second Half of the Year 260

Alice Wonders5 de August de 2026 17:1619 de October de 2026

Loja imersiva com design futurista, iluminação digital e exposição de produtos, representando as tendências de inovação e experiência no varejo em 2026.

Half the year is already behind us, and plenty of trends have played out in the retail market, but there’s still a lot of new stuff on the way. In 2026, experience has cemented itself as one of retail’s main competitive differentiators. Every interaction has become an opportunity to strengthen bonds, build brand recall, and create lasting relationships with consumers.

Over the past few years, audiences have become more demanding, more connected, and more selective. People are looking for convenience, personalization, and, above all, experiences that make sense for their routines and values. In this landscape, keeping up with market shifts is no longer just a matter of innovation; it has become an essential strategy for keeping a brand relevant.

However, keeping up with trends doesn’t simply mean following fads. The real challenge lies in understanding which movements reflect structural changes in consumer behavior and how they can be incorporated in a way that’s consistent with the company’s identity.

With that in mind, in today’s article we’ll cover some of the trends that promise to make a significant impact on the retail sector in the second half of this year, and how you can draw inspiration from them to create new campaigns, experiences, and innovations for your business and your audience. Let’s get started!

What defined the first half of 2026

To kick things off, it’s important to understand that the first months of 2026 were marked by the consolidation of trends that had already been gaining momentum and that delivered concrete results for both consumers and businesses.

Artificial intelligence, for example, stopped being just an operational tool and started playing a direct role in the customer experience. Hyper-personalized recommendations, smart assistants, shopping journeys adapted in real time, and predictive analytics allowed brands to deliver far more relevant and efficient interactions.

Another highlight was the evolution of the phygital concept. The integration between physical and digital channels made the journey more seamless, allowing consumers to move between apps, social media, e-commerce, and physical stores with virtually no noticeable barriers. The experience became continuous, regardless of the touchpoint chosen.

Retail spaces designed for lingering and socializing also gained ground. Many stores went from being merely places to shop to becoming spaces for discovery, relationship-building, and community, investing in events, activations, cafés, workshops, and areas dedicated to interaction between consumers and brands.

These movements reinforce an important point: the greater the perceived value of the experience, the less competition tends to rely solely on price. Today, consumers still take price into account when they buy, but what truly matters to them, and what will make a lasting impression in that space, is the experience.

3 trends set to transform the second half of the year

There’s a lot of innovation arriving in the retail segment that promises to transform the consumer experience. One important common thread among these trends is the use and encouragement of technology, which is a powerful ally when it comes to building great experiences.

So we’ve selected 3 trends that promise to transform the second half of 2026 and that you can use as inspiration for something new in your space. Check them out:

1. Multifunctional stores and immersive experiences

The very concept of a store continues to undergo a significant transformation. More and more, physical spaces are no longer serving a purely commercial function and are taking on multiple roles within brand strategy.

Beyond selling products, stores are now offering spaces for events, launches, demos, coworking, content creation, workshops, and sensory experiences that encourage consumers to stay longer.

This movement strengthens what’s known as retailtainment, the combination of retail and entertainment, turning a store visit into a memorable experience and expanding opportunities for brands to build relationships with their audience.

2. AI-driven personalization

If AI had already taken center stage in the market during the first months of the year, in the second half it’s poised to become even more sophisticated. We’ll see AI not as a threat to the market, but as a powerful ally in day-to-day work and in the consumer experience.

As the tools evolve, it will be possible to understand individual preferences with far greater precision, delivering communications, offers, store layouts, recommendations, and experiences tailored to each consumer’s profile.

More than automating processes, artificial intelligence now supports strategic decisions about the customer experience, allowing brands to anticipate needs and create far more relevant and efficient journeys.

3. Brand communities as a loyalty strategy

Brands that manage to create a sense of belonging tend to build longer-lasting relationships with their consumers. That’s why one of the big bets for the second half of the year is the strengthening of brand communities.

Instead of focusing solely on selling products, companies are investing in relationship programs, exclusive events, interest groups, collaborative experiences, and spaces where customers share values, interests, and stories.

In this context, store design also takes on a new role. Spaces are no longer merely functional; they now encourage encounters, conversations, and spontaneous interactions, making the physical experience an important point of emotional connection.

The result of applying these trends is a relationship with your audience that’s less transactional and far more grounded in identification, trust, and repeat engagement. This way, you can keep up with what’s new in the market and adapt those innovations to the essence of your business.

Remember: trends should strengthen your brand identity

The second half of 2026 promises to consolidate a retail landscape that’s even more focused on people, technology, and meaningful experiences. However, keeping up with trends doesn’t mean adopting them indiscriminately.

It’s always worth remembering that not every innovation makes sense for every company. When trends are adopted just because they’re hot, they can lead to experiences that are disconnected from the brand’s identity and create inconsistent messaging for the audience.

That’s why, before implementing any new market development or trend in your business, it’s essential to assess whether it aligns with the company’s purpose, reinforces its values, and truly meets consumer expectations.

Trends come and go. Brands with consistent positioning endure. And it’s precisely those that manage to balance innovation, authenticity, and experience that will be best prepared to build strong, meaningful relationships in the future of retail.

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The Briefing That Kills a Great Experience 0 89

Alice Wonders7 de October de 2026 15:007 de October de 2026

Briefing estratégico para desenvolvimento de experiências de marca

“We need a campaign.” “Let’s do an event.” “We need an activation.” “How about building an app?” Almost all of these requests share the same first step: the brief.

In day-to-day marketing, phrases like these tend to show up as the starting point for new projects. The problem is that, more often than not, they don’t present the challenge. They already present the answer.

And when the solution comes before the problem, creativity starts out with less room to explore.

That doesn’t mean a campaign, an event or an activation is a bad choice. The real question is whether it is, in fact, the best answer to what the company needs to transform. After all, it’s entirely possible to execute a solution perfectly and still solve the wrong problem.

Before the “what,” comes the “why”

An effective brief shouldn’t start with the deliverable. It should start with the context.

What’s happening?;
Why does it matter to the business?;
Who is affected?;
What is that person going through?;
Is there a behavior or perception that needs to change?;
What has already been tried?;
And what don’t we know yet about this challenge?

These questions help turn a request into an opportunity for investigation.

“We need to create an activation to increase store traffic,” for example, already defines a big part of the path. But realizing that a significant number of people move through the space without engaging with a particular category opens up a far more interesting discussion: how can we make this journey more relevant?

An activation may still be the answer. But now it’s one possibility among many — not a decision made before the problem was understood.

A good brief opens up possibilities

There’s an important difference between giving direction and dictating the solution. A good brief needs to be clear about the challenge, the audience, the objectives, the context and the constraints. At the same time, it should leave room for the team to question assumptions and explore different paths.

It’s precisely this combination that can make the creative process more powerful.

When the brief says “do X to achieve Y,” the discussion tends to focus on how to do X as well as possible. When it says “we need to achieve Y because this is the scenario we’re facing,” the question becomes “what’s the best way to get there?”

It may seem like a small difference, but it can completely change the outcome.

The solution might lie in a physical experience, in content, technology, service, communication, environment, journey or a combination of different possibilities. The format stops being the starting point and becomes a consequence of the strategy.

So where does experience come in?

With whoever is on the other side.

A good experience doesn’t come only from what the brand wants to communicate or offer. It needs to take into account the context of the people who will live it. What do they expect? What could create friction? What’s relevant at that moment? What role does the brand play in that journey?

When these questions make it into the brief, the project stops being just about a deliverable and becomes about a transformation.

This perspective also helps avoid one of the most common mistakes in experience projects: creating something interesting for the company but not very relevant to people.

An idea can be beautiful, innovative and technically flawless. But if it doesn’t respond to a real need or doesn’t make sense in that context, it’s unlikely to be a good experience.

The brief doesn’t need to come with a ready-made idea

Perhaps this is the main shift in perspective: the brief isn’t there to say exactly what should be created. It’s there to create the conditions for the best idea to emerge.

That means spending more time understanding the problem before rushing to the solution. It means questioning requests, investigating behaviors, acknowledging constraints and leaving room for possibilities that weren’t on the radar yet.

In the end, the more clarity there is about the problem, the more freedom there is to think about the solution.

This is the mindset Alice Wonders brings to turning business challenges into experiences. Combining strategy, creativity and a people-centered approach, we help brands break away from ready-made solutions and find more relevant paths for what truly needs to be transformed.

Because a good experience may start with an idea. But a relevant experience starts with a good question.

Want to uncover new possibilities for one of your brand’s challenges? Talk to Alice Wonders.

In the Age of AI, What Still Needs to Be Human? 0 92

Alice Wonders6 de October de 2026 15:006 de October de 2026

Experiência imersiva que representa a conexão entre inteligência artificial e fator humano.

You know when you chat with an AI chatbot, get exactly the information you needed, and still feel like something was missing? Or when an AI-generated image is technically perfect but doesn’t stir any emotion at all?

These examples point to one of the biggest challenges of the AI era: the more technology we have at our disposal, the more valuable the traits that are still essentially human become.

Artificial intelligence already writes, creates images, analyzes data, personalizes content and automates processes. But with so many possibilities, a question arises: if technology can do more and more for us, what still needs to be done by people?

With that in mind, today we’ll look at what still needs to be human, even in the AI era, and how to get there without competing with technology, but by using it as a business ally. Enjoy the read!

AI has changed the game

To start, we need to understand that artificial intelligence has brought speed, scale and efficiency to companies in virtually every industry. Today, brands can analyze behavior, personalize journeys, generate content and automate interactions in a matter of seconds.

The problem is that when the same tools are available to everyone, technology alone stops being a differentiator. If any brand can use AI to personalize a message, generate an image or automate customer service, what will make one of them memorable?

That’s where the human factor comes in. AI can identify patterns, but interpreting context is another story. It can recognize emotions, but not experience them. It can generate possibilities, but it can’t decide on its own which of them actually makes sense for a brand. It can personalize an interaction, but it doesn’t necessarily create a connection.

In the end, memorable experiences are built on something that goes beyond technology: feeling, meaning and identification.

What still needs to be human?

Now that we understand how AI operates and how it can support a business, the question remains: what still needs to be human? So we’ve put together a few areas below where AI can’t perform as well as a human. Take a look:

Feeling: an AI can identify that a certain experience has the potential to move people. But it’s the person who feels surprise, nostalgia, belonging or delight. And it’s these emotions that turn an interaction into a memory;
Interpreting: data shows what people do. But understanding why they do it takes context, background and sensitivity;
Creating meaning: artificial intelligence can generate thousands of ideas. But an experience doesn’t become relevant just because it’s new. It needs purpose, it needs to align with the brand and it needs to make sense for whoever is living that moment.
Building connections: an unexpected detail, service that shows genuine care or an experience that feels designed especially for someone can create bonds that go far beyond the transaction. And the more automated our relationships become, the more value there may be in precisely these genuinely human moments.

What if AI made experiences more human?

Is there an ideal world where technology and human experiences support each other in perfect harmony? Well, in brick-and-mortar retail, this discussion becomes even more relevant. Instead of using artificial intelligence just to automate processes, brands can use it to enhance experiences.

Imagine spaces that adapt content to each visitor, experiences that personalize journeys in real time or environments that respond to people’s behavior.

Technology is there, but it doesn’t have to be the star. The star is the person living the experience. That’s why the question shouldn’t just be “where can we add AI?” but rather: “How can AI make this experience more relevant for the people who are here?”

Like other technologies, artificial intelligence is likely to become increasingly accessible. The differentiator, then, won’t be who uses AI, but who knows how to use it with purpose. That means starting with the consumer, understanding their behavior, defining what the brand wants to spark and only then choosing the technology that can make that experience possible.

Because AI can expand possibilities. But it’s the human perspective that turns possibilities into meaning.

AW: technology to create more human experiences

At Alice Wonders, we believe technology only makes sense when there’s a purpose behind it.

That’s why we combine technology, creativity and strategy to transform physical spaces into experiences that bring brands and people closer together.

Want to discover how to use technology to create more human and memorable experiences for your brand?

Click here to learn more about Alice Wonders’ work.