AI agents or humans? Amazon, Intersport and New Balance weigh in on the future of sports retail

Will sports shoppers trust an AI agent or a human with their next purchase? Executives from Amazon, Intersport and New Balance took on the question at the ISPO Summit in Amsterdam on Tuesday. The panel, “The Future of Retail: Where Consumer Insight Meets Intelligent Commerce”, brought together Avi Samtani, managing director and Europe GM at Amazon Sports; Tom Foley, CEO of Intersport International Corporation; and Ger Wright, VP sales EMEA at New Balance. Yasmin Dufournet, head of consumer insights, moderated.

The panellists broadly agreed that AI will reshape how consumers shop for sporting goods. They also agreed it will not replace physical stores or human expertise any time soon, particularly for high-value, emotionally driven purchases.

“Few and far between”

Asked whether he would rather buy through an AI agent or a human, Samtani said his loyalty lies with the customer experience, however it is delivered. “Today, a lot of multi-purpose agents just don’t make the cut. I don’t think we’re there yet,” he said. “I do think agents within retailers are a lot better.”

He would choose an excellent agent, Samtani added, but said such agents are “few and far between today”. “Multi-purpose agents, these are agents that scrape the internet and make a purchasing decision for you, are not doing a good job today,” he said. “These agents are not able to get the right price, get the right inventory levels, and hence the customer experience using these multi-purpose general agents isn’t quite there yet.”

He expects that to change. “Looking five years forward, I think we’re probably having a very different conversation,” he said.

The case for the human

Foley and Wright both opted for the human, at least for now. “We’re very much a human-intensive business. We have over 5,000 stores, and we continue to open stores,” Foley said of Intersport. “Even with all this technology that’s available today, we continue to open stores in a successful way.”

He linked this to the nature of the category. “Because of the emotive element of sport, there’s a need to talk to a human and engage with a human. I don’t think that will ever go away, even with an excellent agent,” he said.

Wright made a similar point. “If you’re spending 250 pounds on a running shoe, you want to touch it, feel it. We know sport is very emotional,” she said. “It’s not just about going in and making a purchase. The consumer is usually buying into something, buying into a goal or something they want to achieve.”

She described what she expects from the store experience: “I want to go to a store. I want to be served by a great store athlete. I want to see different options. I want to be able to try them on.”

Brands need to feed the agents

Wright said brands have a role to play in getting AI agents to the point where consumers trust them. “From a brand perspective, we can really help the agent by giving them rich data, to be able to serve the consumer in a smarter, faster way in the future,” she said. “The data needs to be rich, and we need to share a lot of data, but if we can do that, I believe the agent can really help the journey.”

That could change the role of the store visit rather than remove it. “The next time I come into a store, I know the brand I want, I probably know the pair of sneakers I want and how much I’m going to be paying, because I will have been served that by the agent,” she said.

Stores will “still be as valid”

Asked whether trained agents could spell the end of physical retail, Foley pointed to predictions made during the pandemic. “There was a lot of commentary that consumer behaviour is going to change forever, and that people will shop online and that bricks and mortar was dead,” he said. “And then shortly afterwards, people went back to going to stores.”

He said AI is already making shoppers better informed, but not more decisive. Intersport tested this by asking an AI tool to recommend three tennis rackets for an intermediate baseline player. “It recommended three rackets to us. But I wouldn’t purchase based on those recommendations,” Foley said. “I think you still need that validation, and you still need that confirmation, and you go into the stores to get that.”

Foley cited a statistic he had heard recently: only 22 percent of shoppers have made up their minds before entering a store. “That means that the relationship between the store staff, managers, owners and the consumer is becoming more important, because that trust element is really, really important,” he said. “I really think that the role of bricks and mortar will evolve, but it will still be as valid in five years’ time as it is today.”

Wright pointed to the investment brands and retailers are putting into physical retail. “There are some beautiful elevated stores out there that are really bringing great experiences to the consumer,” she said, adding that many retailers are now organising running events and building communities.

Foley agreed, particularly outside major cities. “In towns and in areas where the sports shop is close to where sport is being played, close to the schools, close to the clubs, close to the facilities, I think the sports store has a real role in the fabric of that community,” he said.

Online “touch and feel”

Samtani pushed back on the idea that online shopping lacks a tactile element. “I think it’s a misconception that you don’t touch and feel when you buy online,” he said. “When you buy online, you’re not making your purchase decision at the point of checkout. You’re making the purchase decision when you decide to keep the product after it’s delivered to your doorstep. And at that point, you are touching and feeling the product.”

He said AI will “touch every single customer journey going forward”, but expects use cases to diverge. Agents will take over repetitive replenishment purchases, while discovery stays in human hands. “I don’t think agents are necessarily going to take over discovery,” he said. “I think agents are going to help you get to a point of information where you can then make your own decisions.”

His prediction for the next five years: “It’s going to be humans with agents.”

Dufournet said her own research found that “the more expensive the product, the more you want a human to advise you in sports”. In winter sports, consumers buying ski boots and bindings wanted to talk to someone, while lower-value purchases were more readily left to AI.

Behind the scenes

Wright said AI could also change how brands and retailers work internally, including buying. “All of that information is in these buyers’ heads. I suppose the question we need to be asking is, how can we get that information out of buyers’ heads and train the AI?” she said. Agents could handle forecasting and planning in the background, she added, and “maybe in the future, they can create assortments”.

Samtani said companies will soon be “running thousands of agents”, which will cut costs across their operations. Those savings, he said, “can be invested back into creating these connections with customers”, including in physical retail moments.

About ISPO

ISPO is an international trade fair for the sporting goods, outdoor and winter sports industries. The 2026 edition took place from November 3 to 5 at RAI Amsterdam, moving from Munich and shifting to early November to better align with global buying cycles. It is organised by Raccoon Media Group with partner Messe München, and the ISPO Leaders’ Summit took place on the first day of the event.