Zebra ZONE: Transforming the Frontline Workforce with Connected Intelligence

This IDC Market Note offers key insights and takeaways for retailers, based on notable themes, trends, strategies, developments, and retail use cases covered at Zebra's annual customer conference, ZONE. Key themes include workforce empowerment as a strategic competitive differentiator; overcoming common barriers; leveraging AI/agentic AI to enable a faster, smarter workforce to optimize operations and business results; and how quality data and real-time inferencing give retailers an edge in successfully navigating today's fast-changing, volatile retail environment."Frontline workforce empowerment is becoming a strategic competitive differentiator in retail as store associates' roles evolve rapidly, absorbing omni-channel fulfillment, higher-value customer engagement, and AI-assisted workflows that demand better tools, collaboration, and real-time intelligence," says Margot Juros, Research Director, IDC Retail Insights.