Last week, I read a fascinating Fast Company profile ofWalmart CEO John Furner, describing how the retailer is using AI across its USstore estate.
The technology is impressive: digital shelf labels thatupdate prices across an entire store in seconds; RFID tags that flag when aclothing rail needs replenishing; AI-generated routes for online pickers; andphones that help colleagues find products and answer customer questions.Walmart is remodelling hundreds of stores with this technology.
But what caught my attention was not the technology itself.It was the operating challenge it creates in store. A new tool or process hasto work in an environment that is already serving customers, managingavailability and keeping the day moving. Colleagues have to learn it while theoperation carries on. For Store Leaders, the question is not whether to maketime for change. It is how to make it work alongside everything else.
For years, the received wisdom was that online would hollowout physical retail. Walmart’s numbers tell a different story. Its stores nowfulfil 80% of its e-commerce sales, and Furner says there is ‘more volume goingthrough stores today than there ever has been.’
The store has not been bypassed. It is now at the centre ofeverything, from the weekly shop to a 30-minute delivery. That raises thestakes for the people running those stores. A Store Leader is no longer onlyresponsible for a shop floor. They are balancing customer needs, stockavailability, online orders, colleague capability and a growing number ofdigital tools - often within the same shift.
The important point is not any individual technology alone.Retailers across the sector are investing in digital shelf labels, RFID,computer vision and smarter fulfilment. The differentiator is whether thosetools work together consistently, in every store and on every shift.
Research from the University of Chicago found that storemanagers explained up to 35% of the variation in store-level productivity inthe two retail businesses it studied. Technology may raise what a store can do.It does not close that performance gap on its own.
Head office can introduce the technology. But thetransformation happens in a live store: when online orders are backing up, acustomer needs help on the shop floor and a colleague is still finding theirfeet with a new process. Store Leaders decide where attention goes, how a teamresponds and whether the intended benefit is felt by customers and colleagues.
It's tempting to think about each new technology in terms ofthe task it removes: the price change that no longer has to be done by hand,the route that no longer has to be planned, the stock gap that is flaggedautomatically. But when those changes happen together, they alter the rhythm ofthe whole store.
Work becomes more immediate and more interconnected. Adecision made in one part of the operation can affect availability, fulfilmentand customer experience elsewhere. The Store Leader’s job is not simply to makepeople adopt the next system. It is to make sensible judgements when the systemmeets the reality of the day: knowing when to follow the prompt, when tointervene and where the team’s attention will make the greatest difference.
That requires more than training on the tools. Retailersneed to be clear about the operating model around them. What decisions shouldremain in store? How should a Store Leader balance a queue on the shop flooragainst online orders waiting to be picked? What information should guide theday, and what should not be allowed to crowd out the work that most affectsperformance: being visible, coaching in the moment and reading what is reallyhappening across the team?
If new technology is simply bolted onto an old model of Store Leadership, it can add another layer of tasks, alerts and reporting. Ifthe role, decision rights and measures evolve with it, technology can giveleaders more capacity to improve the operation, develop their people and focuson customers. That is the difference between digital activity and real storetransformation.
What stands out most in Walmart's approach is how much its people are involved in making the change work. It brought thousands of associates to its annual Associates Week to hear the plans first-hand, then asked them to take that story back to their colleagues. It offers AI training and certification, and more than 40,000 employees have signed up for company-funded AI programmes. Associates carry tools built to make their day easier, from finding a product in seconds to answering customers in dozens of languages.
Walmart also gives people room to contribute. It opened up an internal tool that lets employees build their own apps, and engineers and hourly workers alike have produced hundreds of them. One store manager built a staffing alert for the front registers. "Some of our best ideas come from our associates," Furner says. Not every idea works, and Walmart treats the ones that don't as learning rather than failure.
That's the model worth paying attention to. Listen to the people closest to the customer, equip them properly, and back their ideas. The technology matters, but the way leaders bring colleagues with them is what makes it work. In every store, that job falls to the store manager.
The future Store Leader will need to be operationally rigorous and commercially sharp. They will also need the confidence to lead people through change, use data without losing sight of the customer, and turn colleague insight into action. Those are not add-ons to the role. They are becoming central to it.
We also need a more complete view of performance. Speed, availability, pick rate and compliance will all matter. But so will whether the team is confident, whether customers are being well served and whether stores are improving the way work gets done. If the measures only reward the system, leaders will have little choice but to manage the system. If they reward the full performance of the store, leaders can lead it.
Walmart’s ambition is a useful reminder of the opportunity. Stores will become faster, smarter and more connected. But the retailers that benefit most will be those that give Store Leaders the time, support and authority to turn that technology into better everyday experiences - for customers, colleagues and the business.
That's why we've launched Project Future Store Leader 2030: a global research programme led by Performology, in partnership with World Retail Congress, and chaired by Judith McKenna. More than 20 global retailers have already expressed interest. We are bringing together senior retail leaders, Store Leaders and experts to build a clearer evidence base on what exceptional Store Leadership will require by 2030.
We will look beyond a generic list of future skills. The research will examine how the Store Leader role is changing, the moments and decisions that matter most, and the conditions leaders need to turn investment in technology into stronger operational, customer and colleague outcomes: clarity, authority, capability and support.
The question for retailers is a practical one: what needs to change now in how we design, develop, measure and support Store Leaders? The gap will not be closed by more technology alone. It will be closed in the store, through the people making it work.
If you're a retailer interested in taking part in the research or want to be kept in the loop with our insights, visit: https://research.performology.global/project-future-store-leader-2030
Source: Elizabeth Segran, ‘Walmart CEO John Furner is turning the retailer’s 5,200 U.S. stores into an unstoppable AI engine’, Fast Company, 15 September 2026. Manager productivity finding: Metcalfe, Sollaci and Syverson, ‘Managers and Productivity in Retail’, 2023.
