Joris Van Genechten, VP Technology & Engineering, Gorilla
Retail energy has always been a complex business. But in 2026, the gap between retailers who invest in their technology stack and those who don’t is widening faster than ever.
Across deregulated US markets, from ERCOT to PJM, retailers face a familiar reality: volatile wholesale prices, growing customer expectations, tightening regulatory requirements, and razor-thin margins. What’s changed is the sheer volume and velocity of decision-making these conditions demand. Pricing a commercial portfolio, managing hedging positions, forecasting consumption across thousands of meters, and responding to market signals in real time requires a level of coordination that simply cannot be achieved through disconnected tools and manual processes.
Yet for many retailers, that is still the operating model. Critical commercial decisions run through a patchwork of legacy systems, spreadsheets, and institutional knowledge held by a handful of people. These setups may have worked when markets were more stable, but they become liabilities when speed and precision determine whether a deal is profitable or loss-making.
The situation has become even more urgent with the continued emergence of the AI agent.
Though powerful, agents cannot operate without the right environment, particularly when it comes to access to tools and data. Retailers must start laying the foundations for an agentic operating model now, to be ready for tomorrow.
The stack is the strategy
The retailers pulling ahead are the ones treating their technology stack not as a back-office function, but as a core commercial capability. That means investing in platforms that connect pricing, forecasting, risk, billing, and portfolio management into a single, coherent data foundation. When these functions share the same logic and the same data, teams gain real-time visibility into margin at the contract level. They can identify where profitability is being created and, just as importantly, where it’s quietly being eroded.
It was a pattern we at Gorilla saw with our customer, Gas South. Gorilla was one part of a complete overhaul of their technology landscape, because they knew that setting up for long term success required greater capabilities across the organization. It couldn’t be piecemeal either; every part of their new stack had to be well integrated with the rest.
This shift from fragmented tools to integrated intelligence encompasses both IT and commercial strategy. When a pricing team can see the downstream impact of a rate on forecasted margin, or when a risk team can trace every hedging position back to an individual contract, the quality of decision-making improves across the organization. And if your people can see these things, then agents can too, but at a scale people will never be able to match.
The cost of standing still
For retailers still relying on siloed systems, the risks compound over time. Margin leakage from misaligned data between pricing and billing. Settlement adjustments that go unnoticed for weeks. Forecasting errors that only surface after the damage is done. Individually, these may look like small issues. Collectively, they represent a significant and often invisible drag on profitability.
As the US market evolves, with new retail choice states emerging, data-center load reshaping demand profiles, and electrification accelerating, the complexity will only increase. Retailers who have built a modern, connected technology foundation will be positioned to adapt. Those who haven’t will find the gap increasingly difficult to close.
From reactive to proactive
The most meaningful change a strong technology stack enables is a shift in posture. Instead of spending time reconciling data and chasing discrepancies, commercial teams can focus on strategy, product development, and growth. At Gorilla, this is the problem we set out to solve with our Energy Margin Intelligence platform: giving retailers the connected, real-time visibility they need to move from reactive margin management to proactive margin optimization.
The competitive energy market rewards speed, accuracy, and adaptability. The technology stack is what makes all three possible.
Key takeaways:
- Identify the technology stack as a commercial advantage, not just an IT function
- Connect pricing, forecasting, risk, and billing into a single data foundation for real-time margin visibility
- Recognize that margin erosion often comes from hundreds of small, hidden leaks rather than big market shocks
- Shift commercial teams from reactive data reconciliation to proactive margin strategy
- Prepare now for growing US market complexity, from new retail choice states to datacenter demand
Author: Joris Van Genechten
Title: VP Product & Engineering
Social: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joris-van-genechten-436b4251/
Bio: Joris Van Genechten is one of the founders of Gorilla and current VP of Product and Engineering. Prior to founding Gorilla, Joris worked at digital agency November Five, also based in Antwerp, and he holds a master’s degree from the University of Antwerp.
Company: Gorilla
Website: gorilla.co
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/gorilladata
Company description: Gorilla is an Energy Margin Intelligence platform built for B2B energy retailers. By connecting pricing, forecasting, hedging, billing, and finance in a single data foundation, Gorilla gives commercial teams real-time visibility into where margin is created, protected, and lost. Gorilla serves retailers across the US, UK, Europe, and Australia from offices in Antwerp, London, and Texas.
