185 years of retail history teaches you one thing: every era brings disruption.
From chain stores to specialty retail, from international expansion to O+O, AS Watson has continuously evolved alongside our customers.
Today, we stand at the beginning of another transformation: AI.
Our Group CEO Malina spoke at the Fortune Leaders Forum 2026 how AI can create lasting value for businesses and customers.
"Our AI ambition should not be to become a more efficient retailer. It should be to become a more intelligent, more human, and more trusted retailer. Efficiency is the first benefit. Reinvention is the real prize."
As leaders, this requires us to rethink more than technology.
First, we must shift from optimising processes to optimising customer outcomes.
Second, we must redesign work, not just automate work.
If we use AI to make yesterday's processes 20% faster, we create incremental value. If we reimagine how work is done and how customers are served, we create exponential value.
Third, we must embrace human-AI partnership.
She does not believe the future belongs to AI-only organisations.
Especially in retail, customers continue to value trust, empathy, judgement, and human connection.
The greatest opportunities will belong to organisations that combine the strengths of both.
She concluded the discussion, “The biggest AI value gap will not exist between companies that have AI and those that do not. It will exist between leaders who use AI to improve the past and leaders who use AI to create the future. The future of retail is not less human.
If we get AI right, it will be more human than ever.”
