AI Consulting Group
AI Consulting Group Is Heading to Retail Show Australia 2026
AICG joins Retail Show Australia 2026 at MCEC, 22–24 September. Booth 170-1 in the Microsoft Innovation Hub. Come and talk about the retail AI projects that actually make it past the pilot.
Proudly working with the best.
Most Retail AI Never Leaves the Pilot
Walk any retail technology floor and you will see the same demonstrations: personalisation engines, demand forecasting, computer vision at the shelf, agentic assistants handling service queries. The demos work. They almost always do.
What happens next is the part nobody demonstrates. The forecasting model runs on data that three systems disagree about. The personalisation engine cannot see in-store behaviour because the POS and the e-commerce platform have never been reconciled. The vision pilot proves itself in two stores and then stalls, because nobody can say who owns the model when it starts making decisions at scale.
The gap between a working demo and a working retail operation is not a modelling problem. It is a foundation problem.
That is what we are coming to Melbourne to talk about.
Where to find us
Retail Show Australia 2026 22–24 September 2026 Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) Booth 170-1, Microsoft Innovation Hub
Now in its second edition under the theme Resilience, Reinvention, Rebound, RSA brings together retailers, brands, suppliers and technology providers from across Australia, New Zealand and the wider Asia–Pacific. The 2026 programme spans an AI-Powered Zone with hands-on demonstrations, a walk-through Future Store Interactive Zone, and the High-Level Summit Forum for retail decision-makers.
Being in the Microsoft Innovation Hub suits the work: a large share of what we build for Australian organisations runs on Azure, Fabric and the Microsoft data stack, and most of the retailers we speak to already have that footprint. The gap is rarely the platform — it is what has been built on it.
Our Cornerstone Programs — Built for Retail
These are the engagements we run most often, and the ones we will be walking through at Booth 170-1. Each is a defined program with a defined output, not an open-ended discovery exercise. Below is what each one looks like when the environment is a retail one.
Strategic Data & AI Think Tank
Education, ideation and strategy workshops over 1–3 days to bring your team up to date and build a Data & AI opportunity roadmap. For retailers, that means putting merchandising, supply chain, store operations, e-commerce and marketing in one room and ranking the opportunities by ROI rather than by whoever shouted loudest.
Generative AI for Enterprise
Automate content creation, analyse complex documents, and enhance or replace conversations with Voice AI, video and image analytics. Retail applications are among the most mature: product descriptions at catalogue scale, supplier contract and invoice analysis, and customer service agents that resolve rather than deflect.
Artificial Intelligence Governance Framework
Global standards alignment and best practice, balanced with practical implementation from specialist AI practitioners. Aligns to ISO/IEC 42001, the National AI Centre’s Guidance for AI Adoption, the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework. With mandatory Australian Standards for AI flagged for legislation in early 2027, retailers automating pricing, credit, rostering or customer treatment decisions have a narrowing window.
Fixed Price Lakehouse in 5 Days
A scalable, elastic, well-governed Lakehouse architecture in Azure, AWS or GCP — ready to ingest enterprise data by day six. This is the layer that lets you see one customer across web, app, store and loyalty, and one product across supplier, warehouse and shelf. Nearly every stalled retail AI project traces back to not having it.
AI Playbook Masterclass Series
One day. One playbook. One competitive leap. Walk out with a tailored AI Playbook, a 90-day action plan and an ROI framework you can put to work the next morning — expert-led in Sydney CBD and backed by Navi, your 24/7 assistant for 90 days. Built for retail leaders who need something board-ready, not another vendor deck.
Machine Vision & IOT
Real-time visual monitoring and sensor intelligence, proven in safety and infrastructure settings. In retail the same technology drives shelf availability monitoring, loss prevention, queue and footfall analytics, and back-of-house safety compliance — turning what your cameras already capture into operational signal.
Power BI Foundations & Team Enablement
End-to-end enablement for teams deploying Power BI for the first time or optimising an existing footprint. For retail that means store and category performance, margin and markdown analysis, and inventory visibility that buyers and store managers actually open — on a platform that is secure and scalable rather than a sprawl of personal workspaces.
ChatGPT or Claude for Individual Productivity
An intensive 1:1 workshop that tailors these models to your role, goals and daily tasks. We do not just teach you about AI; we build your personal productivity engine with you. Popular with buyers, category managers and merchandising leads who spend their week in spreadsheets, supplier emails and reporting.
Three questions worth bringing to the booth
- Where is AI already making decisions in your business, and who owns those decisions? Most retail executives underestimate this substantially, and it is the first question a regulator will ask.
- What would it take to get a single trusted view of a customer across your channels? If the answer involves reconciling four systems by hand, that is your real AI roadmap, whatever the vendor deck says.
- Which of your stalled pilots failed on the model, and which failed on the data underneath it? Almost always the second — which means the fix is architectural, not another proof of concept.
The bottom line
Retail is under genuine pressure: margin compression, volatile demand, workforce change, and a consumer who now expects the online and in-store experience to be the same thing. AI is a real answer to a lot of that. It is just not a fast one, and the organisations getting returns are the ones that did the foundational work first.
Come and find us
AI Consulting Group — Booth 170-1, Microsoft Innovation Hub, MCEC Melbourne, 22–24 September.
No appointment needed. Drop by, bring the project that stalled, and we will talk it through.