The highest-intent moment in retail has been underbuilt. That changes now.

More than eighty percent of retail still happens in physical stores. Seventy-five percent of retail media dollars go to Amazon, which accounts for roughly five percent of total retail. That gap is the opportunity, and it's why Fluent is partnering with Bilt to bring commerce media to the point of sale: unifying hardware and software at checkout, integrating loyalty, and delivering closed-loop measurement for advertisers.

Checkout has to work before the media layer can

"A superior commerce media outcome starts with a better in-store checkout experience. You can't build the media layer on top of a broken checkout experience," said Jehan Luth of Bilt. Matt Conlin's example from the panel makes the problem concrete: a smoothie bar checkout with a full-screen ad, followed by a separate prompt to download an app for loyalty points, two disconnected flows where there should be one. Fluent and Bilt are building toward a single moment: checkout, relevant offer, and loyalty, without the friction.

This wasn't a pivot. It was already the plan.

"Fluent was built fifteen years ago on a forward-looking bet that commerce media would become foundational to retail. Cannes 2026 was the validation," Matt Conlin said. In-store isn't a new direction, it's the same transaction and loyalty intelligence Fluent has always run on, applied to a moment the industry has been slow to build for deliberately.

That timing matters commercially too. As Matt put it, "the easy money from shifting trade marketing budgets is largely tapped." Growth now depends on new surfaces, and retailers are increasingly open to non-endemic advertisers who can bring real audience specificity, not just adjacent-category spend, to a channel that's been treated as an afterthought.

The store is the highest-intent moment in commerce, and it's still underbuilt

Kylissa Ward of Dick's Media described Dick's as "a sport network that's commerce enabled," with access to youth athletes and families that larger platforms can't replicate. Sam Bloom of PMG held up Chick-fil-A, not as a restaurant but as a technology and operations company, as proof that brands earn the right to advertise by delivering the experience first. The ad is downstream of the experience, and checkout is part of that experience.

The most immediate value from AI in-store isn't a product recommendation, it's invisible: auto-submitting HSA and FSA reimbursements, equipping associates with tools like closet design software. AI that improves the moment without announcing itself is the same principle Fluent and Bilt are building toward at checkout.

The bottom line

• Fluent is partnering with Bilt to unify checkout, loyalty, and closed-loop measurement at the point of sale, physical retail's most underbuilt advertising surface.
• More than eighty percent of retail happens in stores, while seventy-five percent of retail media dollars go to a channel that's only five percent of total retail. That mismatch is the opportunity.
• This is an extension of Fluent's original thesis, not a new direction. The market caught up to it at Cannes 2026.
• The store remains the highest-intent moment in commerce: physical, immediate, and, until now, underbuilt relative to its value.

Want to talk through what in-store could look like for your team? [Reach out to our team].