The value was never in the tools; it was in the thinking. Will AI replace creative teams? The real answer is much more interesting. AI won’t replace creativity. It will separate real creativity from the kind that only looked good because the process was slow. For decades, creative work had a natural protection: time. It took days to mock up ideas. Weeks to explore concepts. Months to produce campaigns. That friction often hid average thinking. AI removes that friction. Now, anyone can generate headlines, visuals, and concepts in seconds. Which means the easy ideas, the obvious ones, are suddenly everywhere. And when everyone can produce average work instantly, average becomes worthless. That’s the real shift.

After years of retooling their businesses for search engines, brand and retail leaders say they’re getting ready for a new frontier: GEO. The term, which means generative engine optimization, refers to optimizing web content to show up in results from AI-driven search platforms, like ChatGPT or Google Gemini. It’s a new way for brands to stand out and reach customers, especially considering that nearly 60% of U.S. consumers have used a generative AI tool for help with online shopping, per an August 2025 survey from Omnisend. If a customer asks an AI engine about buying lip gloss or a T-shirt, the relevant brands want to make sure they show up. But it’s not an easy journey, executives conceded this week in interviews with Modern Retail and during panels at Shoptalk Fall in Chicago. Brands and retailers have spent decades crafting their SEO playbook, figuring out which keywords to include on product pages, blogs and additional web content to show up in Google or Yahoo. Now, with GEO, platforms like ChatGPT and Perplexity are pulling and ranking information — oftentimes, in response to hyper-specific inquiries, rather than one-word or two-word requests. This could also have financial consequences for brands, especially as these agents start enabling checkout.

Walmart continues expanding its high-tech supply chain facility model. The discounter has announced the location for its next high-tech, next-generation fulfillment center. The new 1.5 million-square-foot automated facility will be located at the Franklin 85 Logistics Center in Carnesville, Ga. Walmart expects the hub will create 1,000 new jobs and bring $1.3 billion in investment to Franklin County, Ga. Construction is expected to begin in late 2026. Walmart’s presence in Georgia includes 209 Walmart and Sam’s Club  stores, as well as 11 supply chain facilities, employing more than 65,300 associates across the state. The retailer says it also spent more than $26.2 billion with Georgia suppliers and supported more than 167,600 supplier jobs in fiscal year 2025.