The Smart Store Revolution: How AI Video is Reshaping Physical Retail

NEW YORK, NY – January 08, 2026 – The line between online and in-store shopping is dissolving, with physical retail spaces poised for an intelligent transformation. At the NRF 2026 retail conference, a groundbreaking collaboration between Idomoo, Poppulo, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) is set to debut a solution that promises to turn any in-store screen into a dynamic, hyper-personalized marketing channel. The new platform enables retailers to generate and display AI-driven videos that adapt in real time to individual shopper profiles, live inventory data, and even the time of day, heralding a new era of responsive, engaging brick-and-mortar experiences.

This innovation addresses a long-standing challenge for retailers. While e-commerce has mastered personalization, physical stores have struggled to move beyond static displays and one-size-fits-all promotions. Traditional video production is costly, time-consuming, and ill-suited for the dynamic nature of a store environment. This new solution aims to shatter those barriers, offering a glimpse into a future where walking into a store feels as personalized as browsing a website.

Imagine a loyal customer entering a fashion boutique and being greeted by a digital display showcasing new arrivals in their preferred styles and sizes. Consider a grocery store screen automatically promoting ingredients for a quick dinner recipe as the evening rush begins, cross-referencing what's in stock. This is the future being demonstrated, a significant leap forward in bridging the digital-physical divide.

The Technology Powering the Experience

At the core of this new offering is a powerful synergy between three distinct technology leaders. The solution integrates Idomoo’s AI-powered video creation, Poppulo’s enterprise-grade digital signage management, and the robust, scalable infrastructure of AWS.

Idomoo’s Lucas AI Video Creator is the engine for content generation. It allows retailers to create high-quality, on-brand marketing videos in minutes using simple text prompts, eliminating the need for expensive studio support and lengthy production cycles. Crucially, Lucas can instantly personalize these videos by connecting to approved real-time data sources. This could include a store's Point of Sale (POS) system, inventory management software, or even in-store sensors that provide anonymized audience analytics.

Once a video is generated and personalized, Poppulo’s platform takes over. Formerly known as Four Winds Interactive (FWI), Poppulo is a leader in managing complex digital signage networks for major enterprises, with a portfolio of nearly 600,000 screens worldwide. Its system connects to the same data sources feeding Idomoo's AI, ensuring the correct, personalized content is delivered to the right screen at the right time. Poppulo’s intuitive governance tools allow retailers to manage vast networks of displays—from a single screen in a boutique to thousands across a global chain—with automated precision.

Underpinning the entire operation is the power of AWS. The cloud infrastructure provides the scalability and processing power necessary to handle real-time data analysis and video rendering on a massive scale. To simplify deployment for retailers, the solution can be paired with the Amazon Signage Stick, an affordable media player that integrates seamlessly with Poppulo’s platform, making the sophisticated technology more accessible.

Personalization vs. Privacy: Navigating the Data Dilemma

The promise of hyper-personalization inevitably raises questions about data privacy. As stores become smarter, leveraging technologies like computer vision, geofencing, and Bluetooth beacons to understand shopper behavior, consumer trust becomes paramount. A staggering 77% of consumers state they prefer brands that offer personalized experiences, but this preference is conditional on the responsible and transparent use of their data.

The collaborators behind this new platform have placed a strong emphasis on security and privacy. According to their announcement, all personalization is handled securely, is compliant with ISO standards, and operates without storing personal data. This is a critical distinction. The system is designed to use real-time inferences—such as detecting that a shopper is viewing a specific product or analyzing anonymous foot traffic patterns—to trigger relevant content without tying that activity to a specific, identifiable individual or storing personally identifiable information (PII). This approach, often involving processing data at the 'edge' on local devices, aims to deliver relevance without creating invasive customer profiles, addressing one of the biggest ethical hurdles in modern retail technology.

For retailers, adopting such privacy-first frameworks is not just about compliance; it's about building the long-term customer relationships that drive loyalty. As AI becomes more embedded in the physical world, the solutions that succeed will be those that can prove they are enhancing the customer experience without compromising personal privacy.

Capitalizing on the Retail Media Boom

The launch of this AI video solution is timed perfectly to capitalize on a massive industry trend: the explosion of retail media networks. Retailers are increasingly monetizing their physical and digital properties by selling advertising space to brands. The global retail media networks market is projected to soar to nearly $57 billion by 2030, and dynamic in-store digital content is a key component of this growth. This platform gives retailers a powerful new tool to offer brands, moving beyond static posters to engaging, data-driven video campaigns that can demonstrably influence purchasing decisions.

Research shows the impact of effective digital signage is substantial, with some studies indicating it can increase overall sales volume by over 30% and reduce perceived customer wait times. By making in-store advertising more relevant and less intrusive, this technology helps retailers create a better shopping environment while opening up lucrative new revenue streams.

“This collaboration marks a new era for in-store engagement,” said John Schweikert, General Manager of Digital Signage at Poppulo. “By uniting the flexibility of Poppulo’s digital signage with Idomoo’s AI video creation and AWS’s infrastructure, we’re giving retailers a simple, efficient way to create relevant, dynamic experiences that drive real business impact.”

Idomoo CEO Yaron Kalish echoed this sentiment, highlighting the accessibility of the new technology. “Video has always been the most effective way to engage customers,” he stated. “We are thrilled to partner with Poppulo and build on AWS to bring the power of Lucas AI Video Creator to retailers everywhere, enabling them to seamlessly create and deploy video ads and other video content in minutes with no studio support needed.” This fusion of AI, cloud computing, and enterprise-level content management signals a definitive shift in how brands will communicate with customers in the physical world.