Happy Tuesday. The Aisle’s first week of existence simultaneously feels like one short day and six long months. Hopefully that makes sense to some of you, especially founders or startup folks. It’s a bizarre but exhilarating feeling, and one I feel very lucky to be experiencing. Your early support has me more confident than ever that there are many, many people interested in what I’m building. Thank you. And keep the feedback coming.
Before we get to this week’s feature in The Center Aisle below, I wanted to shamelessly flag two media appearances I made last week that outline what I’m paying attention to and what I’m excited to cover going forward.
On Friday morning, I joined Andrew Ross Sorkin and Becky Quick on CNBC’s Squawk Box to discuss the Walmart succession news, the rise of AI-powered shopping, and, yes, The Aisle. You can watch the six-minute clip here if you want to see what I look like after extremely little sleep and a four-block sprint thanks to New York City traffic. (I blame neither for my frequent gesticulating…you can credit my Italian-American upbringing on Staten Island for that.)
I also appeared on the e-commerce podcast The Jason and Scot Show with Jason “Retailgeek” Goldberg and ReFiBuy founder Scot Wingo. It was my third appearance on their show and episode 333, which must mean something lucky. I really enjoyed our nerdy discussion and think you will too. You can listen here.
Lastly, I hope to finally start publishing a recurring closing section next week focused on exciting or extra-helpful uses of AI in your daily life. Respond to this email with any tools or use cases that are blowing you away. A few of you have already sent examples that genuinely wowed me.
Now onto the good stuff, as promised.
The Center Aisle
Nearly half of Americans say it is harder to afford groceries than it was a year ago, according to a recent Axios survey by The Harris Poll. And with a new Morgan Stanley report highlighting grocery as a prime category for AI-powered shopping agents, entrepreneurs are seeing an opportunity to help cash-strapped consumers while building the next generation of commerce technology.
One of them is John Laramie, a serial entrepreneur I have known for more than a decade. I first met him when he was building Adstruc, which helped brands more efficiently plan and buy billboard and other out-of-home advertising. He is now the founder of a new startup called CartHappy, which unveiled its waitlist today.
“There is nothing more repeatable, structured, habit-based, or price sensitive than grocery,” Laramie told The Aisle exclusively. “And that is the easiest thing to apply agentic commerce to.”
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