The selection process, spearheaded by RTIH founder Scott Thompson, assessed 150 candidates based on their ability to solve specific industry pain points and their traction heading into 2026. A panel of retail executives—including representatives from Walmart, Boots, and JD Sports—evaluated firms on their capacity to balance technical novelty with defensible market positions.
Everseen captured the top spot, lauded for its widespread adoption in grocery and self-checkout environments, including deployments across 1,700 Kroger stores. Hanshow secured second place for its advancements in electronic shelf labels and digital twin capabilities. OpenAI rounded out the top three; while judges noted its retail-specific deployments remain in the early stages, they identified its conversational commerce tools as a potentially disruptive force capable of fundamentally altering retail economics.
The remainder of the top ten includes Starship Technologies for its autonomous delivery network, Vusion for shelf-edge infrastructure, and Dexory for its warehouse inventory scanning robots. Trigo, Stripe, Symbotic, and Foundit! complete the list, reflecting a diverse range of solutions from supply chain automation and computer vision to payment processing and intent-led commerce platforms.
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