LONDON, March 25, 2026, 16:32 GMT
Marks & Spencer shares closed at roughly 332 pence on Wednesday, down about 0.7%, after the British retailer said it would roll out AI tools to 11,000 store managers and support-centre staff. The stock ended below Tuesday’s 334.2-pence close as M&S outlined a broader technology push. 1
Why it matters now is simple. Marks & Spencer is trying to turn a recovery from last year’s cyberattack into lasting productivity gains before full-year results on May 20, but the backdrop has turned harsher: a CBI survey on Tuesday showed British retail sales fell in March by the most since April 2020, and official data on Wednesday showed inflation held at 3.0% in February before an expected energy-led rise. 2
The share move ran against the tone of the wider market. Reuters reported the FTSE 100 was up 1.1% by 10:28 GMT on hopes of a Middle East ceasefire and softer oil, while M&S slipped toward 332 pence. 3
M&S said every store manager and store support-centre colleague would get Microsoft 365 Copilot licences, with the software used to pull together sales data, product availability, shift notes and rotas into quick summaries. The company also referred to so-called agentic AI, meaning software designed to handle routine tasks with less manual prompting. 4
Chief executive Stuart Machin said the retailer was already using AI in stock forecasting, ordering and marketing and called the new rollout “central to our technology transformation”. Microsoft UK chief Darren Hardman said the system should turn store data into “clear actions and insights” closer to the shop floor. 5
The tech push ties into a wider repair job in clothing and home, where M&S is still trying to rebuild online momentum. John Lyttle, the group’s fashion, home and beauty boss, told Reuters in November that online penetration in that business was about 10 percentage points behind the wider market, leaving M&S trailing Next in e-commerce reach. 6
Food remains the firmer part of the story, but that market is tight too. Morrisons said on Wednesday that UK grocery trading remained “highly competitive”, and Reuters reported earlier this month that Tesco and Sainsbury’s were still gaining share as food inflation edged back up to 4.3%. 7
The risk is that any payoff from AI takes time to reach margins just as shoppers come under pressure again. CBI economist Martin Sartorius said “weak economic conditions continue to weigh on household spending”, while Aberdeen’s Luke Bartholomew called February inflation data “a relic of the world before the Iran conflict”. 8
That comes on top of unfinished cleanup from the 2025 cyberattack. M&S said in November it expected to be fully recovered by March 2026, but the breach forced a seven-week suspension of online clothing orders and was initially expected to cost about 300 million pounds in lost operating profit. 9
The company has shown it can still pull in shoppers when food lands and the range is right. But January’s trading update also underlined the split in the business: food like-for-like sales rose 5.6% over Christmas, while fashion, home and beauty sales fell 2.9%. 10
Investors get the next hard marker on May 20, when Marks & Spencer is scheduled to report full-year results. 2
