The Week In News, But Shorter
June 1 – 7, 2026

A Weekly PropTech Newsletter bringing you industry updates from across the real estate spectrum

A recent CoStar article addressed how one strong relationship helped bring Amazon into the mall space. It’s a reminder that sometimes the right relationships unlock the biggest opportunities. Not to toot our own horn, but working with experienced, well‑connected partners who understand property owners and tenant needs alongside market dynamics is the exact value we deliver, matching the right uses, deals, and digital tools to maximize your property’s performance. By combining industry relationships, market intelligence, and technology solutions, we help position your property to capture high-profile tenants and create new revenue streams.

In other headlines this week, “The Mall” is not longer just a place, but also an app; one retailer found their AI offering for employees a little too successful, and an ICSC wrap-up for those who might have missed it. We’re over on LinkedIn and hope to connect there between conferences!

Digital Meets Physical

A new app, The Mall, is building a universal feed for online shopping [TechCrunch] The mall is making a comeback. As younger people return to American shopping malls in greater numbers, a startup called “The Mall” is bringing the concept online with an app that lets users create a personalized virtual mall from their favorite brands and track sales in one place.

Many consumers don’t see value in store technology – here’s why [Chain Store Age] U.S. retailers are investing heavily in store technology, but many shoppers are not reporting benefits. Slightly more than half (52%) of U.S. consumers say in-store technology makes their experience somewhat or much better, while 48% say it makes no difference or makes the experience worse.

Retailers turn to AI for productivity, personalized shopping [RetailDive] Retailers are betting on AI to improve the customer experience, enhance decision-making and personalize shopping. Best Buy, Gap and Dick’s Sporting Goods highlighted new ways in which the companies are incorporating the technology into their internal workflows and how customers interact with the brands.

DHL survey: AI will soon make our e-commerce buying choices [SupplyChainXchange] Amid a fast-changing e-commerce landscape, a DHL report shows the top changes that retailers need to prepare for in the coming years, including: AI that makes our buying choices, non-negotiable demands for sustainability, and the rise of second-hand shopping.

Gopuff develops ‘shopping genius’ for app with SpaceXAI [Chain Store Age] A Philadelphia-based consumer delivery service is teaming with an Elon Musk-affiliated artificial intelligence company. Gopuff is collaborating with SpaceXAI to launch “Go,” which the on-demand delivery provider calls a first-of-its-kind “shopping genius” built for its app.

Walmart Curbs Employee AI Use as Demand Spikes [PYMNTS] Walmart has reportedly limited employees’ artificial intelligence usage amid rising demand. Sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Walmart has begun offering a set number of tokens — a unit of AI computing data — each employee can use with its in-house AI agent Code Puppy. Before this, workers had an unlimited number of tokens, the report added.

PropTalk

How a single connection helped this broker bring Amazon to malls [CoStar] The right relationship can unlock deals that no amount of cold outreaching ever will. Cook, a commercial real estate broker known for finding new revenue streams in shopping centers, has built a career on spotting overlooked value by turning corridors, rooftops and parking lots into income-generating space.

Multifamily’s New Math Favors Suburbs and Scale [Propmodo] On the surface, leasing fundamentals look solid. Absorption is tracking above historical averages in many markets, and capital is flowing into the sector. But beneath those headline numbers, developers and operators are confronting a market that’s fundamentally different from what it was two years ago.

Macy’s revamped half its stores and customers followed [RetailDive] As it improves merchandising and customer experience at 200-plus stores, some analysts now see the department store taking share from weaker rivals.

ICSC Las Vegas: Real estate execs moving forward despite global uncertainty [Chain Store Age] The mood among commercial real estate executives at the recent ICSC Las Vegas show was that of optimism despite increased construction and fuel costs and wavering consumer sentiment. While noting that for some retailers, the increased cost of rent due to a lack of availability has been hard to swallow.

Quince is testing physical retail with pop-ups [ModernRetail] Quince is on a physical pop-up run across North America this year. Quince hosted its latest physical pop-up in Los Angeles, called Quince Furniture: The Art of Home.

Walmart: Store-fulfilled deliveries getting faster [RetailDive] Walmart’s U.S. sales using store-fulfilled delivery have more than doubled over the past two years as the retailer continues to prioritize faster shipping. More than 36% of deliveries from stores arrived in three hours or less in Q1, with faster speeds fueling customer engagement.