Good afternoon.
Before we get into today’s issue, a quick note: I’ll be co-hosting a private dinner at the Shoptalk conference next Wednesday night with a select group of senior retail and tech leaders. There may be room to include a couple of you who are planning to attend the show, so please hit reply if you’d like to be considered.
At the broader conference, I’ll be interviewing Stitch Fix CEO Matt Baer onstage Thursday afternoon. Stitch Fix was once on the cutting edge of blending algorithmic recommendations with human styling, but has experienced its share of ups and downs since its stock price peaked five years ago. That said, the company has recently shown some financial progress under Baer’s leadership, so I’m looking forward to our conversation.
If you’re attending, you can also catch me interviewing a top Alibaba executive at an AI-focused press luncheon Tuesday, and moderating a Women in AI panel Wednesday during a lunch with leaders, and friends of The Aisle, from Stripe, Klarna, and Novi. Please shoot me a note if you want to say hi.
It’ll be a busy few days on the ground in Las Vegas, so please forgive me if my weekly dispatch arrives a bit later than usual. I’ll do my best to stay on track and hope to come back bearing lots of good intel.
Now on to the good stuff…
The Center Aisle
Target Chief Information and Product Officer Prat Vemana. Photo credit: Stephen Allen
Anyone who follows retail knows that Target, the onetime king of cheap chic, has been stuck in a difficult stretch, which culminated in longtime CEO Brian Cornell leaving the top role last month.
New CEO Michael Fiddelke’s turnaround plan includes a focus on better merchandise assortment and an improved store experience, but also aggressive investment in AI-powered tools for both staff use and customer-facing applications. Much of that tech-focused work will fall on Prat Vemana, the retailer’s Chief Information and Product Officer.
I recently spoke with Vemana and pushed him for candid views on Target’s evolving AI strategy, from its partnerships with OpenAI and Google around in-chat shopping experiences, to what the retailer hopes to achieve by building its own app on ChatGPT, and the changes customers should expect as large language models begin to reshape shopping on Target’s own website and app.
I’ve lightly edited the interview for both clarity and brevity. I’d love to hear what you think.
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