Is your company ready for success in 2026?

Retailers are increasingly facing "success disasters," where sudden surges in popularity and traffic exceed the capacity of their systems, leading to costly outages and long-term damage such as lost trust and regulatory scrutiny. These challenges are exacerbated by the rise of agentic AI, which can generate massive traffic quickly, unlike human patterns. As consumers become less patient and more choices become available, a single failure can lead them to switch to competitors, with social media rapidly spreading news of any glitches. Preparing for unpredictable, real-time demands rather than predictable peaks is essential, requiring retailers to adopt distributed, multi-region infrastructures and comprehensive testing strategies, including soak and breakpoint tests, to avoid single points of failure. Companies must ensure systems can horizontally scale and maintain availability during high demand, while transparency and communication during outages are crucial to preserving customer trust.