Strategic thinking starts with a clear read of the ground you're standing on. And in beauty right now, the ground is shifting under all of us at once — a consumer under real economic pressure, a retail landscape being redrawn in real time, and discovery and shopping journeys being revolutionized at the speed of light.

This session opens the day with a data-driven look at what's actually happening in beauty retail. On the consumer side, we'll unpack the macro forces shaping how, where, and why people are spending on beauty — from value-consciousness and the wellness economy to the behavioral shifts already showing up in the data. On the competitive side, we’ll examine some of beauty’s key retail players and uncover what the market is signaling about their momentum. And on the category side, we'll highlight the trends shaping how consumers are engaging with beauty right now and where the movement is heading.

Expect BI’s unique perspective.  The kind of point of view that goes beyond the headlines and into what it actually means for your business, your assortment, and your brand partners. You'll leave knowing your consumer better, seeing the landscape shifting around you more clearly, and carrying the context that gives every conversation that follows real weight

AI isn't coming for your job, but it is transforming it.  And it’s doing it faster than most merchant organizations are prepared for, and in ways that are already reshaping how consumers find, evaluate, and buy beauty. The buyers who get out ahead of it will spend the next few years widening the gap. The ones who wait will spend those same years catching up.

This session cuts through the noise with a clear view of where AI actually sits in beauty retail today, as seen through three lenses:

1. From the consumer perspective, we'll look at what shoppers are really doing with AI and how it's showing up in discovery, in research, in the purchase moment, and where it's rewriting the path from awareness to conversion. 

2. From the retailer’s perspective, we'll examine how the industry is responding. We’ll look at the pilots, the investments, the organizational shifts, and the honest gap between where retailers say they are and where they actually are. 

3. Finally, we'll explore where all this is realistically heading over the next few years and what that means for how you plan, how you buy, and how you show up for your brand partners.

You'll come away understanding what these shifts mean for your vendors, your competition, and your numbers, and where to prioritize your own AI learning so you stay ahead of it rather than chasing it. Grounded in BI's mapping and segmentation of merchant organizations across different types of retail channels, the session brings real merchants on stage to share how they're navigating the change in practice, so you’ll get actionable insights on what's working, what isn't, and what they wish they'd started doing sooner.

What does the merchant's job actually become over the next few years? It's one of the most important conversations in the industry, yet one no one is having. The merchant is the person everything runs through, but rarely the one the industry stops to talk about - until now.

We'll start with the core responsibilities that aren't going anywhere:  managing brand relationships, reading the market, stewarding inventory and capital, running smart promotions. From there, we'll map the external forces putting real pressure on the role, like the influx of new brands, established brands growing more selective about their retail partners, AI reshaping how work gets done, a consumer changing faster than most organizations can keep up with, and the rising role of marketing inside the merchant function itself.

You'll see how the right response looks different depending on the type of organization you're in and how central beauty is to it. And we'll get into what all of this means for your career over the long term, including the paths that open up beyond the buying seat, because the buyers who thrive from here don't just plan for the next season. They plan for the next chapter.

Bringing together merchants who've navigated this shift in very different directions, the panel shares what they've learned about staying valuable, staying curious, and staying ahead of where the role is going next.