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PMC Wins Two RTIH Innovation Awards with Ann Summers and Bodycare

News | Oxford, UK, November 2026

PMC won Digital Transformation Project of the Year with Ann Summers and the RTIH Editor’s Choice Award with Bodycare at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards, held on Wednesday 4 November at The HAC in London. Now in their eighth year, the awards recognise technology innovation across omnichannel retail, and this year’s attracted a record number of entries.

Both projects run on Graphene, PMC’s unified commerce platform, but they started from very different places. Ann Summers wanted to modernise the systems behind a well-established business, while Bodycare needed the technology for a brand coming back to the high street with a completely new store model.


Ann Summers and Bodycare asked very different things of us. One needed to modernise the systems it already trades on, and the other needed a platform for stores that didn’t exist yet. Graphene sits behind both, and seeing that recognised by RTIH means a great deal to the team who delivered them.

Modernising Ann Summers’ integrations in four months

Ann Summers relied on more than 100 integrations every day, so replacing the platform behind them couldn’t put stores or online sales at risk. PMC moved everything onto Graphene in four months with no disruption to trading, and integration costs fell by 50%.

The Digital Transformation Project of the Year award was decided by RTIH’s independent judging panel. Ann Summers now has a modern, connected platform it can keep building on, and the project also won Headless and Composable Commerce Implementation of the Year at the Retail Systems Awards earlier this year.

Building the technology behind Bodycare’s new stores

Within a year of its stores closing, Bodycare became the UK’s first AI-first retailer, and PMC built the technology behind it on Graphene. Rather than investing heavily in central systems, the model puts the money into the shop floor. Each store has more than 30 AI cameras and up to 20 screens, with Bodycare’s AI system, AIMEE, adjusting merchandising and content to suit the local store.

Bodycare’s comeback store in Sheffield opened to queues. Because the AI is built into the platform rather than run as a pilot, it grows with every new opening. The rollout is now under way, with 35 stores planned for 2027 and 250 potential locations across the UK.


We didn’t start out to do AI for AI’s sake… We wanted AI that would enable local optimisation and local community, and basically end the tyranny of the planogram.

Finalists in three more categories

PMC was also shortlisted as a finalist in Bricks & Mortar Innovation and AI Innovation (UK), both with Bodycare, and in Technology Implementation of the Year (UK) with Ann Summers.

We’d like to thank the Ann Summers and Bodycare teams for their partnership, and our engineers, testers and delivery leads who made both projects happen. Congratulations to all the winners and finalists, and thanks to Retail Technology Innovation Hub for a great evening.

Modernise what you have, or build something new

Whether you’re looking to bring existing systems up to date or start from scratch, we’d be happy to talk through what Graphene could do for your business.

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