In May 2026, we asked The Retail Hive’s Supply Chain Leaders to score themselves on their AI adoption pathway.
The average Retail Hive member scored themselves at 47.7% across all areas of supply chain AI adoption, on the cusp between ‘adopting’ and ‘implementing’.
Only 3% of retailers consider themselves AI leaders.
50+ retailer responses including:
Kingfisher, New Look, Sky, Halfords, Clarins, River Island, Harvey Nichols, Sainsbury’s.
Across all four capabilities, retailers are clustered tightly around the same “adopting” stage — which says less about anyone falling behind and more about the fact that this is still genuinely early, collective ground. Governance and use case selection have furthest to travel, while data foundations lead the pack, though even there it’s a narrow lead rather than a runaway one. The real takeaway is that the gap between where most retailers sit and where the leaders are is still small, which means the businesses that sharpen their approach now have a real, close-at-hand chance to pull ahead.