| A Weekly PropTech Newsletter bringing you industry updates from across the real estate spectrum |
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| Parking lots are in the hot seat again this week. After making headlines recently over frustration with premium parking fees, they’re now facing criticism over license-plate readers. And while there’s plenty of nuance to this particular situation, it points to a broader issue: as technology becomes more deeply embedded in the retail environment, property owners need to think about how their customers understand, trust and feel about it. License-plate readers, cameras, AI and other tools can improve security and operations, but if visitors perceive them as intrusive or aren’t clear about what data is being collected, why it’s being collected or how it’s stored, a technology intended to make a property better can instead make customers angry. At the end of the day, it’s worth thinking about technology as part of the customer experience, not just an operational tool, and making sure customers understand what it’s doing and why.
Also this week, commercial real estate takes some notes from construction, Spirit Halloween does its annual hole-plugging across the country, and Instacart white labels AI for retailers ahead of the holiday season. That’s all until next week – until then, find us on LinkedIn. |
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| Ulta’s use of Flock technology causes upset online [RetailDive] Social media users flooded Ulta Beauty’s Instagram posts this week sharing their frustration about the company’s work with surveillance technology provider Flock after a campaign by activist organization UltraViolet went viral.
Target adds new AI features to consumer app [Chain Store Age] Target has launched four new AI tools within its app. These updated AI capabilities follow the November 2025 rollout of several other AI-enabled app capabilities, including a conversational AI-equipped gift finder tool and a list scanner solution that enables customers to scan their handwritten lists in the app.
How Aviator Nation is preparing for AI-led shopping [Glossy] At Aviator Nation, AI-attributed sales are still in the early stages. Over the last 30 days, the brand saw around 20 orders come through ChatGPT, according to Curtis Ulrich, the company’s director of e-commerce. Compared to the company’s total order volume, that figure is “fairly insignificant,” he said. Still, the brand is already preparing for a future in which AI becomes a more meaningful shopping interface. |
| Google Closes Local Digital Gap For Retailers [Media Post] Reaching shoppers with digital ads at the moment they are ready to visit a store or when they are already nearby a store may look different this year as the holidays approach. Google added two new updates that help brick-and-mortar stores connect digital ad campaigns for local buyers with activity inside stores. The tools also measure online ads that drive in-person sales.
Instacart launches custom AI assistants for retailers, and its own [ModernRetail] Instacart announced the launch of Cart Assistant, a white-label assistant that retailers can implement on their own websites and apps. This is the latest addition to Instacart’s suite of enterprise services for retailers, further democratizing access to the kind of technology that larger retailers build in-house.
UK’s John Lewis looks to harness AI agent shopping in ‘difficult economy’ [Reuters] John Lewis, Britain’s largest employee-owned retailer, is stepping up investment in content creation as customers increasingly find products through AI agents, seeking to keep them engaged in what it called a “difficult economy”. |
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| What Commercial Real Estate Can Learn From How Contractors Adopted Technology [Propmodo] For decades, construction and commercial real estate have shared a reputation as the industries technology forgot. Both were described in the same terms in the same consulting reports, sitting near the bottom of every digitization index alongside agriculture, running on relationships and paper and institutional knowledge that lived in people’s heads.
The 1.5-Million-Square-Foot Hole in the Center of San Francisco’s Comeback [The Wall Street Journal] This city has a 1.5-million-square-foot hole in its AI-fueled renaissance: the downtown site of what was its biggest mall. Not long ago, San Francisco Centre was a thriving retail destination, with a luxury day spa, nine-screen movie theater and department stores Nordstrom and Bloomingdale’s drawing huge crowds. But the mall got sucked into a downward spiral during the pandemic.
Sears isn’t dead. It’s alive and well in Mexico. [The Washington Post] The iconic retail brand is down to five locations in the United States. In Mexico, there are more than 90. |
| Spirit Halloween Turns Retail Vacancies into Seasonal Wins [CRE Daily] Spirit Halloween opens roughly 1,500 temporary stores annually through a specialized leasing operation targeting vacant retail space. Flexible termination clauses let landlords collect temporary rent while preserving opportunities to sign permanent tenants. The strategy shows how pop-up retail can monetize downtime, especially when bankrupt chains leave usable big-box locations behind.
Dead malls dot America. Why not get rid of them? [The Washington Post] The empty husks of malls litter American suburbia, and reformers have put a lot of stock into a seemingly clever idea: turn the vacant lots and empty storefronts into something useful. Such legislators are part of what’s known as the YIMBY movement, short for “yes in my backyard,” whose mission is to build more housing.
Nike, Simon Property Group dropped from S&P 100 [RetailDive] Nike and Simon Property Group will soon lose their places on the S&P 100, according to a list from the S&P Dow Jones Indices released last week. The companies being added to the cohort are largely from the tech sector. Both remain on the larger S&P 500. |
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