Linnworks CMO Hilary Smith on the manual work hiding inside automated operations: why AI’s biggest retail bet is the back office
Linnworks CMO Hilary Smith on why AI’s biggest retail investment is moving into inventory, fulfillment and order management — and what peak season really tests.
Georgia-Pacific’s Melissa Blunte on consumer understanding at scale: why data gives you precision, not understanding
Georgia-Pacific consumer experience leader Melissa Blunte on why more data creates precision, not understanding — and how to make consumer insight a whole-company job.
Marketing AI Institute’s Mike Kaput on AI pilots vs. AI capability: only about 25% of organizations are scaling with a strategy
Marketing AI Institute’s Mike Kaput on why only ~25% of organizations scale AI with a strategy, and what separates a pilot that demos well from a real capability.
From Opticon 2026: Federated Hermes’ Melissa Ryan on a 20-site replatform: the technology was the easy part
Federated Hermes’ Melissa Ryan on consolidating 20+ sites into one global front door on Optimizely, and why design sign-off — not the platform — was the hard part.
IFPA’s Jim Rucinski on running a global digital experience with two people: build reusable capability, not another thing to maintain
IFPA Solutions Engineer Jim Rucinski runs a global digital experience with two people: his request filters, an Optimizely DAM + GraphQL fix, and AI citation tracking.
Optimizely’s Greg Heinz on rebranding an AI platform: AI scaled the work, but every input stayed human
Greg Heinz, Senior Director of Brand and Digital Strategy at Optimizely, on the 2026 rebrand: hand-commissioned illustrations, AI-generated backgrounds, and why “the agent can’t feel.”
Canva CMO Meghan Gendelman on brand as infrastructure: stop policing brand, start arguing throughput
Canva B2B CMO Meghan Gendelman on brand as infrastructure — why AI and brand investment drift apart, where inconsistency shows up first, and how to sell guardrails as throughput.
Scrunch’s Head of Marketing Kevin White on being cited, not just found: why ChatGPT referral traffic is only the tip of the iceberg
Kevin White, Head of Marketing at Scrunch (now Sitecore), on AI search vs SEO: citations over referral traffic, agent-ready pages, and long-tail intent.
Standard AI CEO Angie Westbrock on closing the gap between the ad and the aisle
Standard AI CEO Angie Westbrock on why retail media still can’t prove in-store outcomes, and how ceiling cameras turn store video into shopper analytics.
Freeosk’s Matt Eichorn and Dilini Fernando on retail media 3.0: turning the physical store into measurable media
Freeosk’s Matt Eichorn and Dilini Fernando on retail media 3.0: how opt-in in-store kiosks turn physical discovery into measurable, identity-linked media.
Qualified Digital’s Kate Dalbey on building an adaptive martech operating model: why rollouts stall on the operating model, not the tool
Kate Dalbey, Chief Client Officer at Qualified Digital, on why martech rollouts stall after the contract is signed — and how to fix the operating model underneath.
Domo Chief Design Officer Chris Willis on speed vs. trust in product design
Domo Chief Design Officer Chris Willis on why AI inherits the confidence you already have in your data — and how to engineer for visibility, predictability, and control.