Fluent in AI: Preparing Irish retail for smarter consumers

Ireland's AI leadership is transforming retail. Retailers must develop AI fluency and ethical practices to enhance customer experiences and stay competitive.

In brief

• Ireland is a global leader in AI usage, impacting consumer behaviour and retail strategies.
• Retailers must embrace agentic AI to enhance customer experiences and operational efficiency.
• Developing AI fluency across leadership, skills, data, and governance is essential for future success.

A recent study from Microsoft’s new AI Diffusion Report highlights Ireland as the fourth highest user of AI globally. This significant societal shift in AI usage reflects a broader transformation, where artificial intelligence is seamlessly woven into the fabric of our daily lives, influencing how we interact, make decisions, and work, ultimately enhancing both personal experiences and professional productivity.

Indeed Ireland being among the top users globally is an advantage, however it is only half the story.  The real test will be turning high usage into high impact – embedding AI into strategy, scaling it across sectors, and doing so in a way that is responsible, sustainable and innovative.

As this shift permeates everyday life, it translates directly into consumer behaviour. Whether it’s using ChatGPT to compare prices, voice assistants to find deals, or image-based tools to explore styles, artificial intelligence has become an integral part of decision-making for Irish shoppers. As Ireland consistently ranks among the top countries for AI adoption, this also indicates that consumers are not waiting for brands to catch up. They are already interacting with AI-powered ecosystems that curate, recommend and transact on their behalf, meaning retailers must ensure their digital presence is designed to be found, interpreted and chosen by these systems.

Now, what is changing even faster is the technology itself. We are moving from AI that responds to prompts, to agentic AI that acts with purpose, context and initiative. These systems can make decisions, anticipate needs and continuously improve through feedback. For retail, this is not a distant concept. Agentic AI is already beginning to reshape customer experience, operations and competition in subtle but profound ways.

If your customers understand AI better than your business does, the risk is not just inefficiency. It is irrelevance. The next competitive advantage in retail is not about how much AI you use, but how fluently your organisation applies it, wisely, ethically and at scale.

But fluency is not only an internal skillset; it’s also about presence. Retailers must ensure their digital shopfronts are structured and connected in ways that AI can interpret and surface. If a consumer asks ChatGPT to “find me a wedding outfit for a December wedding in Ireland,” and Retailer A’s platform isn’t digitally accessible or optimised for AI discovery, that sale is already lost. In an AI-mediated marketplace, discoverability is the new shelf space. Retailers who fail to show up in these intelligent ecosystems risk disappearing from the consumer’s line of sight altogether.

From automation to autonomy

Until recently, most retail applications of AI focused on efficiency: automating service tasks, forecasting demand or tailoring offers. Those tools remain important, but agentic AI changes the dynamic. Instead of simply processing instructions, these systems can act independently within defined parameters, learning from interaction and adapting over time.

Imagine virtual shopping assistants that negotiate offers on behalf of consumers, supply chains that reconfigure automatically in response to real-time conditions, or loyalty platforms that design personalised experiences without human input. These are no longer futuristic scenarios. They are early indicators of how retail ecosystems will operate when agentic AI becomes mainstream.

What AI Fluency Looks Like in the Agentic Era

AI fluency is the ability of a business to think, act and compete in an AI-enabled world. In the age of agentic AI, it also means understanding how to manage systems that can act independently. It is not about coding. It is about mindset, governance and agility.

Four pillars define it for retail and consumer businesses.

1. Leadership and strategy

Fluency starts at the top. Boards and executives must understand how agentic AI changes value creation, not just in marketing or operations but across the business model. EY’s global CEO research shows Irish leaders now rank AI among their top strategic priorities for 2025, yet most still describe their organisations as early-stage adopters. Moving forward, strategy needs to consider where autonomy adds value and where human oversight must remain.

2. People and skills

Agentic systems work best in partnership with people who understand their purpose and limits. Store managers, analysts and marketing teams all need the confidence to question and refine AI-driven outcomes. National Skills Ireland has identified AI literacy as a critical workforce priority, highlighting the need for curiosity, ethical awareness and decision accountability. Training should focus less on technical depth and more on judgment, collaboration and critical thinking.

3. Data and technology

Agentic AI depends on connected, high-quality data to act responsibly. For retailers, that means linking loyalty, inventory and behavioural data so that autonomous systems can make informed choices. The most fluent organisations will use agentic AI not only to automate but to anticipate.

4. Ethics, trust and governance

As the EU AI Act nears implementation, governance becomes non-negotiable. Agentic AI requires even stronger oversight than earlier systems because it acts with initiative. Fluency means knowing not only what AI can do but what it should do. Retailers will need frameworks that ensure fairness, transparency and accountability, especially when algorithms influence recommendations, promotions or employment decisions. Demonstrating control and explainability will build consumer trust at a time when data ethics directly influence brand loyalty.

Building fluency for the agentic future

For Irish retailers, becoming well versed in AI does not require wholesale transformation. It requires deliberate, cross-functional progress.

Step 1: Diagnose and define

Assess comprehensibility across leadership, people, data and governance. Identify where AI is already making decisions and where autonomy could add value. Establish clear boundaries for human oversight and define measurable indicators of fluency.

Step 2: Build shared understanding

Create a cross-functional AI council to guide responsible innovation. Run internal education sessions that explain how agentic AI works and where it fits into business goals. Showcase practical examples that build confidence, such as predictive stock ordering or automated content creation.

Step 3: Embed trust and transparency

Align internal practices with the EU AI Act. Communicate openly with consumers about how AI supports their experience and how their data is protected. Make trust an active part of your brand, not just a marketing promise.

Step 4: Scale and evolve

As AI literacy grows, explore co-creation models where consumers participate through their own AI tools. Agentic systems could soon enable personalised storefronts, negotiated offers or adaptive loyalty programs that evolve with customer preferences. The retailers that learn fastest, will be those that balance innovation with integrity.

Fluency as a future skill

AI fluency will not arrive through a single project or policy. It is a continuous process of learning, testing and refining. The retailers that thrive in the age of agentic AI will not be the ones with the most automation, but those whose leaders, people and systems understand how to guide autonomy with clarity and purpose.

Irish consumers have already embraced AI in their everyday lives. The real question now is whether Irish retail organisations can meet them there, not just in capability, but in visibility and lead in shaping what comes next.

Summary

Irish retailers face a pivotal moment as AI adoption reshapes consumer behaviour. To thrive, they must cultivate AI fluency, ensuring ethical and effective use of agentic AI technologies.