Shoptalk Europe 2026: beauty retailers embrace agentic commerce

Shoptalk Europe 2026 drew more than 4,500 senior retail and technology leaders to Barcelona last week, with agentic commerce, AI adoption and discovery-led shopping dominating the agenda.

For beauty retailers, the key takeaway was that AI is reshaping how consumers find and evaluate products, but trust and human expertise remain the category's most decisive conversion tools.

Adam Plom, VP of Content at Shoptalk Europe, said agentic commerce had become "the defining phrase" of the event, describing everything from assisted to fully delegated shopping experiences.

"What's equally clear is that the European retail community expects technology to deliver real business impact while keeping people firmly at the centre," Plom commented.

This is especially true for the UK Gen Z consumer base, with Bambuser's Shopper Behavior: Video & AI Report 2026, which was released during the event, showing that 74% of UK Gen Z believe AI will fully recreate the social experience of physical shopping.

The entrance area of Shoptalk Europe 2026

Beauty leaders frame trust as the last durable asset

In a world where discovery, consideration, purchase and fulfilment can all happen through agents, trust becomes a retailer's "last and most durable asset," said Mark Elkins, General Manager, Global Ecommerce at L'Oréal.

Nadine Graf, President, Europe, UK&I & Emerging Markets at The Estée Lauder Companies, added that trust, while built through generations, must be created "again and again."

As consumers increasingly rely on AI assistants for their research and recommendations, brands must focus on reinforcing their credibility so that it holds up when shoppers seek validation from a store associate, beauty advisor or trusted creator.

Rik Strubel, Chief Marketing Officer at Douglas Group further added that with rising adoption of AI assistants, consumers now arrive with deeper product knowledge than ever before and seek "validation" in purchase decisions rather than initial discovery.

For beauty retailers, that shifts the role of the store, while sales assistants shift from being an educator to reinforcing consumers pre-conceived understanding of the product and brand.

Discovery moves from search to social and visual

Another key insight for beauty brands and retailers was shared by Pinterest. According to data collected by the platform, 69% of Gen Z find visual search results more helpful than text when making a purchase. With consumer attitudes around search changing, making products easy to spot through visual search will become increasingly important.

How consumers are searching for beauty is moving not only from traditional to more image-based channels – it is also increasingly happening on social media.

Since TikTok Shop launched in the EU in in late 2024, over 100,000 European businesses have joined the platform, with daily Gross Merchandise Value delivering triple-digit growth between August 2025 and February 2026, according to the platform.

Rather than a search-first transaction, TikTok Shop places products inside shoppable videos and interactive livestreams, turning entertainment into a seamless path to purchase – and customers are embracing it.

One of TikTok Shop's key features, its LIVE Shopping functionality, has already seen great success with beauty brands such as viral beauty brand P.Louise. It generated over $2.7 million (£2 million) in sales during a 14-hour live event on TikTok LIVE in November last year.

Consumers trust retailers more than AI, but for how much longer? 

Another central question that was posed at the event was who owns the consumer's discovery journey in the AI era. While retailers currently hold a trust advantage over AI, how much longer will this last?

As Mondelēz International, VP of Global Digital Commerce, Andrew Lederman put it, "wherever the discovery experience goes is where the dollars will go."

For beauty brands and retailers this creates two key priorities. The first is to ensure that they show up where customers are searching – across visual mediums, shoppable videos, AI-chatbots and social media platforms.

Secondly, brands and retailers must ensure that consumers see them as a trustworthy source and seek out their curation, and guidance.

This puts the focus on human expertise, credible product storytelling and the physical store experience that still plays an important role for consumers as they try-out and want to experience beauty products.

As agentic commerce takes an ever-more important role in customer's roles, building and maintaining trust on those platforms, and beyond, will be key for beauty brands and retailers.