The Week In News, But Shorter
August 3 – 9, 2026

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

Back in the spring we talked about digital air rights and what they mean for your property as AR/VR and the use of smart glasses grows, but an article this week from Propmodo pointed to how these same technologies can in fact be a tool to operate your properties. Think giving maintenance and facilities teams hands-free access to manuals, building data, and work orders while enabling remote experts to guide on-site staff in real time. While there might not be a ready to purchase product that does this quite yet, and there are questions and concerns that need to be considered first, it’s an exciting way to think about the future of your center and how rapidly evolving technologies might play a role in your future. Are smart glasses on your roadmap? Let us know over on LinkedIn.

Also this week, we move from back-to-school predictions to holiday predictions (yes! already!) and the role AI will play. We also heard why GLP-1s might be leading to more foot traffic, and why some retailers continue to think smaller might be better.

Digital Meets Physical

Hunting for Deals with AI this Back-to-School Season [WWD] When it comes to back-to-school consumer trends, shoppers are buying earlier and are more value-minded and strategic in how and where they shop. Two consumer surveys also reveal the impact of inflation and the role of social media.

DoorDash launches in-house drone delivery program after FAA certification [Reuters] DoorDash launched its in-house drone-delivery program, DoorDash Air, after securing a U.S. Federal Aviation Administration certification to operate ‌commercial drone deliveries in the U.S.

Shopify says AI search is driving more traffic and sales, not replacing Google [TechCrunch] On the company’s second-quarter earnings call, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said AI has become a “complement to search, rather than a substitute for it,” and had particularly benefited the long tail of e-commerce, including the smaller merchants that make up the majority of its customer base.

Kohl’s debuts AI shopping assistant [RetailDive] Kohl’s has launched an AI shopping assistant for its online and mobile app shoppers. The AI assistant aggregates deals, provides personalized product recommendations, compares multiple products and searches for items using customers’ uploaded images.

Shoppers aren’t buying into virtual try-ons [eMarketer] 38.3% of US digital shoppers have never used virtual or augmented reality to shop and aren’t interested in trying it, making outright rejection the single most common response.

As the holidays near, two-thirds of shoppers are using AI [RetailDive] Almost three-quarters (71%) of shoppers plan to start their holiday shopping journey before Black Friday this year.. Almost half (46%) are shopping prior to November. Two-thirds (67%) of shoppers have used AI tools like Gemini, Perplexity and ChatGPT to manage their purchases in the last three months. For Gen Z consumers, that share rises to 80%, the survey found.

PropTalk

AI Could Eventually Make the Real Estate Industry’s Systems of Record Obsolete [Propmodo] Artificial intelligence has been adopted by commercial real estate organizations at a pace that would have seemed remarkable just three years ago. Lease abstraction, underwriting support, document summarization, market analysis, the list of tasks that real estate professionals are now delegating to AI tools grows longer every quarter. But beneath the adoption numbers lies a more complicated picture.

CBRE: Retail rents increase in Q2 [Chain Store Age] Retail rents are continuing to tick upwards amid a lack of new construction. CBRE’s Q2 2026 data found that average retail asking rent increased by 2.4% year over year to $24.79 per square foot, which it said was supported by historically low construction completions and four consecutive quarters of positive net absorption. The retail availability rate was unchanged at 4.9% in the second quarter.

Private equity firm tries again to buy 100-plus J.C. Penney stores [RetailDive] Onyx Partners, a private equity firm that last year attempted to acquire a portfolio of roughly 120 J.C. Penney stores spanning several states, is trying again. This time, the company has offered $934 million for 117 properties, which like last year’s bid averages out to about $8 million per store.

Property Management Is Overlooking the Usefulness of Smart Glasses [Propmodo] For commercial real estate, the flood of smart glasses hardware should read as a signal, not noise. Because for all of these devices hitting the market, almost no one outside a few heavy industries has built the actual use cases. The frames are here. The software that would make them genuinely useful inside a building is not.

To keep growing, incoming Best Buy CEO says he first wants to go smaller [CNBC] As incoming CEO Jason Bonfig prepares to take the reins at Best Buy, he spoke with CNBC exclusively about how he’s focused on expanding the company’s reach and enhancing the customer experience. Part of that strategy includes investing in small-format stores, which open the company up to areas that can’t support full stores but could still benefit from Best Buy’s presence.

For GLP-1 users, the in-store clothes shopping trip is back [Reuters] About 11% of Americans are on GLP-1 weight-loss drugs, according to Gallup. With changed bodies, many are inclined to try on clothes in person to figure out what styles fit their new size, shoppers told Reuters. More than two-thirds of consumers using GLP-1s say sizing changes have made them more likely to shop in-store, according to a survey of 500 people from ReturnPro, which helps retailers manage returns.