A Retail Executive Goes Shopping for AI | NRF APAC 2026

What does buying AI look like when a retailer has a real problem to solve? At NRF APAC 2026 in Singapore, Alex Rezvan joins Low Ngai Yuen, Managing Director of AEON360, on a live buying mission across the show floor. Ngai Yuen is not browsing demonstrations. She has a specific requirement: improve the quality, structure, localisation and usefulness of AEON’s product data before expecting AI to create value from it.

The journey began at NRF New York, where she found two young product-data companies. In Singapore, she meets them again—this time with a clearer brief, real retail data and a route towards a proof of concept.

The first conversation is with Lazuli, a Japanese product-data company whose location and market knowledge matter to AEON’s imported Japanese products and private brands. The team discusses turning unstructured catalogues and PDFs into structured, searchable information, then enriching products with the right language, descriptions, categories and market context. The second meeting focuses on inconsistent supplier data, missing attributes and a proof of concept involving 50,000 SKUs.

The discussion shows why retailers need reliable information before adding generative or agentic AI—and why a product catalogue must keep changing as language, trends and customer search intent evolve. This is less a conference interview than a view inside the retail buying process: identifying a problem, finding potential partners, testing them on a real case and deciding whether the technology can scale.

In this episode - Why Ngai Yuen came to NRF APAC with a live buying brief - How relationships formed at NRF New York continued in Singapore - Why local Japanese market knowledge matters to AEON - How unstructured product information becomes searchable catalogue data - What inconsistent supplier data costs retailers - Why the team is testing a 50,000-SKU proof of concept - How a “living catalogue” responds to changing search intent - What innovation showcases can offer established retailers This episode is for Retail CEOs, digital and data leaders, ecommerce teams, merchandising leaders, innovation teams, procurement leaders, retail technology founders and anyone responsible for taking AI from conference pitch to operational reality.