4 Milestones I’m Proud of So Far in 2025
By Sam Vise, CEO, Optimum Retailing
Momentum builds fast in retail, and we don’t always get the chance to step back and celebrate progress. So, at the beginning of this year, I made a commitment to pause more regularly and take stock of what we’ve achieved.
These moments of reflection help us stay connected to the work and the impact we’re making. It’s good for the business (and for me as a business leader) to stop and smell the proverbial roses every once in a while.
Looking back on the start of 2025, a few key themes emerged in our business. One is how we’re more intentionally balancing the art and the science of visual merchandising in exciting ways. We’re also seeing positive results in using AI to help retailers do more with less in a challenging economy. Across all of our work, we’re focused on how AI’s integration across retail verticals can support practical improvements with meaningful outcomes.
The first few months of this year brought a wave of innovation, meaningful partnerships, and some industry recognition for Optimum Retailing that I’m proud of. Here’s a closer look at what stood out most — three wins that pushed us forward, and one trend I’m eager to lean into even more.
What we’ve achieved in 2025 — and one direction I hope continues
It’s tough to pick only a handful of highlights, but a few moments truly defined the first four months of 2025. These milestones reflect the progress we’re making as a team at Optimum Retailing, both in what we’re building and how we’re engaging across the retail industry.
1. We introduced the world to Realgram AI.
This February, we launched a tool we’ve been building toward for years — Realgram AI, the industry’s first AI-powered solution designed to deliver store-specific planograms at scale.
It’s our answer to one of retail’s most frustrating pain points: static planograms that ignore real-time inventory levels and fail to account for the physical capacity of each store, making it difficult for store teams to execute accurately.
Realgram AI addresses this challenge head on. The tool aligns planograms with what’s actually available in stock and helps teams avoid over and underallocation, delivering more consistent in-store experiences — all with less guesswork and fewer manual touchpoints.
Realgram AI also fills a gap for Merchandising Planning teams by giving them the opportunity to allocate to stores based on business objectives, such as top selling items or high margin products. Using historical analysis, Realgram AI applies these objectives to determine which products should be in which stores to meet each goal, arming MP&A teams with precise allocation parameters for maximum profitability.
Realgram AI isn’t just a flashy new tool — it’s changing how teams approach execution from the ground up.
The launch was a major moment for our team. The response so far has been energizing, and being shortlisted for an innovation award by the Retail Technology Innovation Hub made the debut even more rewarding. There’s nothing better than rolling out a new solution and hearing how it’s added immediate value to the daily operations of our customers.
We shared more about how Realgram AI works and helps teams localize execution with greater accuracy, efficiency, and control, especially as they scale and address unique vertical needs.
2. We championed a more sustainable retail future.
Sustainability has a logistics problem — and smarter planograms are helping solve it.
Since launching Realgram AI, one pattern has stood out: the impact of localized merchandising strategies on reducing retail waste and energy consumption.
By generating planograms based on what each store can realistically support, retailers are cutting back on overallocation and overproduction while also avoiding unnecessary shipments. This evolution is reducing the volume of excess product flowing through supply chains, making in-store execution more efficient, and helping retailers decrease their environmental footprint by better aligning real-time supply and demand.
As the only platform that allows retailers to planogram their store marketing in addition to products, OR helps them reduce waste from printed signage and promotional materials. When planograms are disconnected from inventory or store layouts, stores often receive assets they can’t use — like signage that doesn’t align with what the store is offering. And, with our digital signage solution, retailers can align in-store marketing with localized planograms, ensuring product and signage stay in sync while lessening their environmental impact.
It’s a tangible example of how operational changes support broader sustainability goals without slowing teams down. A win-win for both environmental and financial retail objectives.
3. We deepened our impact in the apparel vertical.
To start this year, we focused on strengthening the connection between Realgram AI and the operational realities of apparel retailers. It's a space where product rotations move quickly, assortments vary widely, and execution missteps can create real cost burdens.
Apparel teams are often tasked with localizing in-store merchandising strategies while still maintaining control over inventory and keeping workloads manageable for store staff. We've been working to build planograms that reflect real inventory and space constraints for apparel leaders, helping reduce visual execution errors and speed up floor set adjustments.
That’s created stronger alignment between HQ and store teams, and more flexibility on the ground for seasonal changes and trending products. If you’re an apparel leader, check out additional insights in our recent blog, which offers takeaways on how AI-powered merchandising is helping localize and personalize in-store apparel experiences.
4. We connected with other industry peers, leaders, and our customers.
Many of the conversations we’ve had so far this year circled back to the same core challenges — execution gaps, leaner store teams, and the need to localize without overcomplicating efforts.
At NRF 2025 in New York, retailers were clear about these hurdles. AI is on everyone’s radar, but the current priority is practical tools that solve pervasive in-store problems. We captured a few of those takeaways in our recap blog from the event, and this video offers a quick look at the energy on-site.
I was grateful to speak with RFID Journal after the event about Realgram AI’s role in what AI can do for retailers.
We’ve also had the opportunity to contribute to stories in Modern Retail, Quartz, Retail Brew, and Inbound Logistics. Being part of those conversations was a highlight and a good reminder of how valuable it is to share ideas beyond our own walls. I'm looking forward to staying in the mix as more of these discussions take shape in the months ahead.
Momentum isn’t slowing down, either. London’s Retail Technology Show gave us another chance to connect in person, as did RFID Journal LIVE!. We’re headed to PI Apparel Merchandise Planning USA and the Millennium Alliance Retail Innovation & Transformation Assembly next week, where conversations will no doubt keep evolving.
2025 is proving to be an important year for brick-and-mortar retail
There’s a lot of talk about what’s next in retail, but the start of 2025 has reminded me of how much we’ve already accomplished — smarter tools, sharper execution, and teams deeply focused on getting the in-store experience right.
At Optimum Retailing, we’re proud to be part of that evolution and we’re feeling energized by the role we get to play in helping shape what comes next.
To the entire OR team — thank you. From product and engineering to customer success and marketing, your work keeps pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in this space.
I’ll be back with more highlights from Optimum Retailing soon. In the meantime, what trends or changes are you watching across the retail industry this year?
