For a long time, people were seen as the weakest link in a system’s security. But what about now that companies are deploying AI bots on a massive scale? Is artificial humanity just as susceptible to phishing, scams and manipulation? Ethical hacker Inti De Ceukelaire takes you on a journey through the art of deception and persuasion techniques that we’ve been using for centuries, but which we’re now applying to AI in this show. In this interactive session, you’ll learn how to persuade an AI agent to waive your parking fine, how to negotiate cleverly with a computer over the price of your car, and perhaps… whether ChatGPT secretly wants to take over the world.

Forget the trend slides, you can read those anywhere. We’ll open up our own platform and show you live production data on what AI agents in retail are doing right now. How they engage with people, how they resolve problems, and what that does to the bottom line. Eline and Tom both spent years at McKinsey. These days they deploy agents for a living. They’ll tell you what works, what doesn’t, and what you can try yourself on Monday. Tom Pluym leads Wonderful in Belgium and Luxembourg, bringing applied AI to Belgian enterprises. Before joining Wonderful, Tom spent more than 14 years at McKinsey & Company, where he became a Partner and advised large organizations on digital and IT transformation. He pairs boardroom-level strategy with deep technical expertise.

Forget the trend slides, you can read those anywhere. We’ll open up our own platform and show you live production data on what AI agents in retail are doing right now. How they engage with people, how they resolve problems, and what that does to the bottom line. Eline and Tom both spent years at McKinsey. These days they deploy agents for a living. They’ll tell you what works, what doesn’t, and what you can try yourself on Monday. Eline van Es is an AI Deployment Strategist at Wonderful, where she drives agentic transformations in retail in the Netherlands. She is part of the global Retail & E-commerce Hub. She began her career at Coolblue, then spent 5 years at McKinsey & Company advising organizations on digital strategy and delivering digital transformations. She combines a strategic perspective with hands-on retail and deployment experience.

Matthieu Ullens leads Digital, E-commerce, Data, IT and AI at Carrefour Belgium, where he oversees large-scale transformation initiatives at the intersection of business, technology and innovation. A member of the Executive Committee, he is passionate about turning emerging technologies—particularly AI—into tangible value for customers, colleagues and the business. With more than two decades of experience in digital leadership across retail, e-commerce and consulting, Matthieu regularly shares his vision on digital transformation, leadership and the future of retail.

Jean-Philippe Blerot is the Head of Digital & E-commerce Projects at Carrefour Belgium, where he leads the end-to-end digitalisation of the customer journey. Overseeing the ecosystem across the website, mobile app, and core e-commerce operations, he leverages artificial intelligence to optimise conversions, autonomously detect friction points, and deliver a seamless, personalised digital grocery experience at scale.

How can you turn your visitors into customers more quickly? Willem Drijver, founder of Taglayer, demonstrates how continuous AI analysis, conversion optimisation and personalisation can boost conversion rates by up to 20 per cent. Through concrete improvements implemented by participating retailers and an AI assistant acting as a personal shopping assistant, he brings these possibilities to life, both online and in-store.

Category Leadership Director France-Belgium-Netherlands-Luxemburg at Mars Pet Nutrition Europe. More about his keynote to follow soon.

These days, promotions seem to be the go-to solution for any growth or volume challenge. But aren’t retailers and manufacturers increasingly shooting themselves in the foot by doing so? During this session, Davy Van Raemdonck, Director of Shopper BE & NL at YouGov, will share the latest insights from YouGov Shopper data. Discover how this unique market intelligence helps companies make better strategic and tactical trade marketing decisions. Drawing on recent market developments, Davy will show how promotional pressure continues to mount, what consequences this has for retailers, categories, brands and shoppers, and where the real growth opportunities lie for retailers and manufacturers who dare to look beyond the next promotion.

Will AI choose your product? Perhaps the real question is broader: how easy is it actually to understand your product range in an increasingly digital retail environment? Shoppers want to be able to find, understand and compare products easily. This requires effective product identification, reliable product data and clear meaning, as well as collaboration between retailers and manufacturers. This is becoming increasingly relevant within category management. Not only with a view to AI, but above all because product information is already being used in more and more digital environments today.

With her keen eye for consumer trends and shopper behaviour, Elise knows better than anyone how vegetables and pulses find their way into the shopping basket. She translates data and insights into concrete action, with one clear ambition: to accelerate plant-based growth.

Stop Starting with the Promotion. From promotional pressure to commercial growth opportunities. 1+1 free, 25% off, cashback… Promotions have become an integral part of commercial practice. But how often do we ask ourselves what we actually want to achieve with them? All too often, the discussion centres on the promotional calendar and the mechanics, whilst the commercial objective, the product category and shopper behaviour should be the starting point. In this thought-provoking keynote, Simone Caljouw, founder of Promology, demonstrates why a successful promotional week does not automatically lead to sustainable value creation. Drawing on her many years’ experience on the manufacturer’s side and using recognisable real-world examples, she challenges retailers and manufacturers to look at promotions differently. From strategy to shelf, promotions that deliver.

Door-to-door distribution remains a powerful channel for attracting customers to your shop. However, rising costs for printing, distribution and taxes mean that every leaflet distributed is a deliberate investment. How do you reach the right households and get more out of your leaflet budget? In this keynote, Pro-mailing and Sirius Insight will show you how to plan door-to-door campaigns more intelligently and deploy them in a more targeted way. With Distritool, you can keep track of your campaigns with bpost and BD in a single overview and identify duplicate deliveries and blind spots on the map. With Dividuals segmentation, you can see not only where you’re delivering, but also which households you’re reaching. Using the Dreamland case study, you’ll discover how targeted segmentation reduces the number of letterboxes delivered to, thereby saving on delivery costs and taxes, with the added benefit of less paper waste.

Door-to-door distribution remains a powerful channel for attracting customers to your shop. However, rising costs for printing, distribution and taxes mean that every leaflet distributed is a deliberate investment. How do you reach the right households and get more out of your leaflet budget? In this keynote, Pro-mailing and Sirius Insight will show you how to plan door-to-door campaigns more intelligently and deploy them in a more targeted way. With Distritool, you can keep track of your campaigns with bpost and BD in a single overview and identify duplicate deliveries and blind spots on the map. With Dividuals segmentation, you can see not only where you’re delivering, but also which households you’re reaching. Using the Dreamland case study, you’ll discover how targeted segmentation reduces the number of letterboxes delivered to, thereby saving on delivery costs and taxes, with the added benefit of less paper waste.

Hanne Vincent is Head of Operations & New Projects at Impaqtr. After many years’ experience at companies including P&G, Alpro and Vandemoortele, where she developed strong expertise in category management and shopper marketing, she now focuses on the operational and technological aspects of data collaboration. Her speciality? Translating complex data flows into secure, legally compliant and scalable solutions. By taking the burden of data processing completely off clients’ shoulders, she ensures that reliable, actionable insights are made available, without organisations having to grapple with the technical complexities themselves.

Alexandra Van Impe is Head of Marketing & Business Development at Impaqtr. Having spent her commercial career at companies including P&G, Unilever and AB InBev, she has first-hand knowledge of the dynamics of the FMCG sector. Today, she combines strategic marketing with business development to position Impaqtr more strongly in the market and to foster new collaborations between retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers. Her conviction? Secure data collaboration breaks down traditional data silos and creates new opportunities to translate market insights into stronger partnerships and tangible commercial added value.

Aster Schepens is Area Manager for the Nordics at Perfetti Van Melle, known for Mentos, Chupa Chups and Fruittella. Drawing on his extensive sales experience as a Field, Category and Key Account Manager, he is now driving export growth through international distribution partners. At RetailDetail Night, he will explain how secure, compliant data collaboration via Impaqtr creates a single version of the truth and strengthens mutual trust. In this way, business partners are moving from largely sailing blind to steering the ship together, with immediately actionable insights that are translated into concrete actions and tangible commercial growth within joint business planning.

Under the leadership of Yildirim Fevzi, Belchicken has grown in recent years into a chain with nearly 60 restaurants in countries including Belgium, Germany, France, Portugal and, more recently, the Netherlands. The focus is on scalable growth, process optimisation and clear positioning within the breaded chicken products segment. The CEO outlines the factors behind the company’s success and sets out its ambitions.

This year marks De Kringwinkel’s 25th anniversary. Today, we have 145 shops across Flanders, and together we give more than 45,000 tonnes of items a new lease of life every year. That’s an average of 6.7 kilos per person in Flanders. For many retailers, circularity is a project: a pilot scheme, a collection, a corner of the shop. For us, it is our entire business model. Everything we sell has already had a life of its own. But it is our people who make the biggest difference. More than 6,000 people work in a Kringwinkel, and 83 per cent of them do so through a social employment programme. People who struggle to find work in the mainstream labour market learn the retail trade with us: sorting, pricing, displaying goods and helping customers. In a sector that is desperate for staff, that’s no small matter. We don’t keep the profits for ourselves. Every euro goes back into our mission: more reuse and more jobs. And we’re taking the next step. At the start of this year, all Kringwinkels joined forces to form the Kringwinkel Group. One brand, one way of working, in-store and online. With the ambition to make second-hand goods just as easy to find as new ones. That’s why we’re a game-changer. We’re not a charity with a shop. We’re a retailer with a mission. Or as our new tagline puts it: Phenomenally Social.