Retail AI Council Launches Shopper Context Protocol Working Group to Strengthen Customer Relationships in the Era of Agentic AI

The initiative unites retail and technology executives around an open standard designed to prevent the erosion of customer loyalty

The Retail AI Council, a retailer-built, retailer-led organization dedicated to helping retailers embrace the transformative potential of AI, announced the formation of its Shopper Context Protocol (SCP) Working Group, a cross-industry initiative dedicated to ensuring that the future of commerce in the age of AI preserves what matters most: customer relationships.

The retail industry faces a critical choice: allow interactions to become transactional and anonymous or adopt AI in a way that honors the connections customers have established with brands they trust.

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Why Shopper Context Matters Now

SCP directly addresses this gap by enabling customers to choose where and how their shopping context is shared, ensuring that agentic commerce strengthens – not detracts from – their relationships with brands. AI is collapsing the traditional shopping journey into a single moment of intent – and without portable context, retailers risk becoming invisible at that moment.

“AI isn’t transformational unless it’s grounded in a deep, real-time understanding of what shoppers want and why,” said Andy Laudato, co-founder and chair of the Retail AI Council and COO of The Vitamin Shoppe. “The Working Group is a critical step toward building that foundation, prioritizing continuity of a shopper’s experience with a brand while democratizing a retailer’s access to context-rich AI.”

Rewriting the Rules of AI in Retail

The mission of the SCP Working Group is to bring together retailers, technology providers, and industry leaders to collaboratively evolve the protocol and establish implementation best practices. SCP is an open, privacy-preserving standard that avoids proprietary lock-in and requires only lightweight implementation. The goal is to drive adoption of SCP as the open standard for a truly customer-focused context, building off the agent-led purchase journey made possible by Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP). ACP enables product discovery and checkout, but not recognition of loyalty, preference, or intent. SCP carries that context into the exact moment where shoppers make decisions, filling this missing layer by making shopper context portable and ensuring that shoppers aren’t reduced to anonymous clicks as commerce becomes increasingly agent-led. As well, where ACP prioritizes the speed and simplicity of product discovery and a frictionless checkout, SCP will ensure the inclusion of human emotion, brand affinity, and other intangibles important to consumers when they shop.

The SCP Working Group’s goal is ultimately to enable customers to securely maintain their relationship data with a retailer across any platform, personal AI assistant, or channel they choose. For retailers, SCP strengthens their ability to recognize and serve loyal customers even as AI systems sit between brands and shoppers. For technology providers, SCP offers a standardized integration point for accessing customer context without building individual retailer-by-retailer integrations.

“Without a shared standard protocol for shopper context, many retailers struggle to unlock the power of AI agents, while being effectively blind to conversations shoppers have within tools like ChatGPT,” said Matt Howland, chair of the SCP Working Group. “SCP ensures retailers can participate meaningfully in these moments instead of being cut out of them. This initiative will help unify our approach, reduce friction, and accelerate personalized AI customer experiences while keeping consumer trust at the forefront of everything we do.”

Driving Real-World Impact for Early Adopters

Retailers and tech vendors who join the Retail AI Council and its SCP Working Group will gain early influence over the protocol’s evolution, ensuring their specific technical requirements and use cases shape the next version of SCP. Members also position themselves as early movers in agentic commerce, adopting open standards while the market is still taking shape.

“I’ve seen first-hand how hard it is for retailers and technology providers when every agentic      interaction starts from zero,” said Doug Weich, Founder & Connecter of the Retail AI Council. “Through the SCP Working Group, we can build practical, scalable standards that preserve customer relationships and strengthen the entire ecosystem.”

Meet the Retail AI Council at NRF 2026

To kick off the Working Group’s efforts, the Retail AI Council will host an invite-only reception during NRF, on Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. The event is curated for meaningful conversations with retailers eager to discuss AI’s impact on the future of commerce and to provide attendees the opportunity to network with leading brands, innovators and AI pioneers.

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