ExperienceMINT, a Rocky Hill, Connecticut startup, launched ELEVATE in July 2026 to solve a problem that has plagued physical retail for decades. A customer enters a store searching for a specific moisturizer. Forty options sit on the shelf with no salesperson is nearby.
They spend four minutes reading labels, become overwhelmed, grab a familiar brand name, and leave with something that might not solve their actual skin problem. Online, that customer would have had filters, recommendations, and chat support. In stores, they had a shelf and guesswork.
ELEVATE combines four layers of technology into one in-store platform: interactive product displays, virtual visualization tools, AI voice assistants, and real-time customer analytics. The voice assistant component directly addresses the shelf dilemma. Shoppers ask questions aloud about ingredients, product comparisons, and what customers with similar needs have chosen.
The system responds without forcing them to wait for a staff member juggling three other conversations. The “magic mirror” visualization tool lets customers see how cosmetics, hair color, or paint would actually look applied before committing to a purchase. That preview replicates the online zoom feature and high-resolution photography for sensory categories where the swatch-to-application difference matters enormously.
The analytics piece is potentially most valuable to retailers. Physical stores have historically operated blind to customer behavior. They know what sold. They rarely know which product a customer examined for forty seconds and rejected. They do not know which display layout drove engagement or which shelf position confused shoppers. Online retailers have owned this data for two decades. ELEVATE is building the infrastructure to generate equivalent insights inside a brick-and-mortar environment.
CEO Andrew Pierce frames the mission plainly: physical retail’s advantage is sensory. As he said:
“Our goal is to, No. 1, create a reason for the consumer to want to go to a retail store. It usually has something to do with the senses. I want to touch something. I want to smell something. I want to taste it. I want to feel it. I want to see it.”
What ELEVATE attempts is adding the informational personalization that online retail perfected to the sensory layer that stores uniquely offer. If it works, the in-store experience becomes better than either channel alone.
Deloitte’s 2026 Global Retail Outlook found that approximately two-thirds of 330 retail executives surveyed worldwide expect to deploy AI for personalization within the next twelve months. Pierce projects ExperienceMINT’s annual revenue will more than double to $50 million, suggesting strong retailer confidence in the technology’s value.
