AI, attribution & accountability for commerce media at CES 2026

And just like that, we’ve entered another new year, hitting the ground running with a slate of events across North America. Up first: CES, the annual trade show where tech giants debut their latest products and services. As with many major industry events, retail and commerce media continue to command a larger share of attention each year.

EMARKETER’s Arielle Ferger noted that this year’s show exemplified how retail media has entered its “accountability era.” In a landscape crowded with more entrants than ever, only networks that can demonstrate real value to brands stand to win.

Ollie Shayer, senior director of global strategy and innovation at SMG, took the stage in Las Vegas as part of ADWEEK House at CES and shared the theme that dominated nearly every conversation: AI.

AI was embedded into almost every product, conversation, and roadmap on the show floor. What stood out was the shift from promise to practice. Agentic models are advancing quickly and will soon require the industry to properly understand, trust, and operationalize them. That momentum extended to robotics. Autonomous vehicles, manufacturing, logistics, and even driverless cars. Not everything will scale as presented, but the direction for retail is clear: autonomy is here.

The overarching takeaway is that this shift toward automation does not feel like a short-term hype cycle. The pace, investment, and seriousness behind what is being built point to real structural change in how technology is brought to market, how businesses operate, and how the industry continues to evolve.

What’s more, a shift toward a more mature commerce media market was evident in headlines from CES:

1. Albertsons announced a new in-store retail media measurement approach. The grocer, which operates more than 2,200 stores across the U.S. under various banners, introduced Albertsons Media Collective’s “matched market incrementality approach,” which aims to isolate causal lift at the store level. The company said Mondelez saw a 14% in-store sales uplift from in-store digital screens.
2. Oura, which sells wearable health trackers, shared plans to triple its investment in Roundel, Target’s retail media network. In 2025, Oura said its sales at Target increased 90% year over year, which it attributed in part to its investment in Roundel and its personalized advertising capabilities.
3. Omnicom Media Group partnered with Walmart Connect to combine the retailer’s first-party data with Instagram influencers, helping advertisers identify optimal creators based on a range of performance factors.
4. DoorDash debuted new tools that allow advertisers to target users based on restaurant ordering habits, enable retailer-level targeting for sponsored products, and provide new insights that let brands benchmark performance against competitors.

These announcements, timed with CES, are designed to position retail and commerce media networks ahead of the competition as the year begins. They also reflect several trends SMG expects to accelerate this year, particularly around AI, deeper industry partnerships, and the continued growth of in-store media.

But as attention shifts toward the future, the fundamentals cannot be overlooked. In fact, they may be the clearest path to long-term success in commerce media. Ollie Shayer and Sean Crawford, Managing Director for North America at SMG, spoke with The Drum about the importance of establishing the right in-store foundation.

“Very few retailers actually know what their stores look like inside,” Ollie told Gordon Young, editor in chief of The Drum. “They don’t know what fixtureization they have, what inventory exists, or what could even be monetized.”

For retailers, mastering these fundamentals is key to unlocking the incremental revenue potential of in-store media. That foundation should sit at the center of a retailer’s broader strategy, spanning marketing, merchandising, trade, and retail media. What you call it matters less than the consumer experience itself.

“There’s a tendency to reduce the store to a screen,” Sean told The Drum. “But the store is an entire environment. Screens, audio, sampling, print, experiential—all of these are still bought in silos in the U.S. What gets lost is any sense of shopper mission.”

2026 represents an inflection point for commerce media. What were once differentiators are now table stakes, and only networks that refine their propositions to deliver unique, impactful, and measurable opportunities for brands will succeed.

On to the next event.