Latest / The Retail Podcast / Mastering the Tech-Business Intersection: Insights from PacSun's CIO Shirley Gao on Navigating Gen-Z Trends & AI in Retai

Transcript

Mastering the Tech-Business Intersection: Insights from PacSun's CIO Shirley Gao on Navigating Gen-Z Trends & AI in Retai · The Retail Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to Salesforce connections.
• 0:02
  I'm Alex when the retail podcast I'm here with Shirley from
• 0:06
  PacSun CIO incredibly privileged to be with cherlene in a lot of
• 0:11
  the international listeners may not know of PacSun.
• 0:15
  But when we get to the area where we unpack, what what has
• 0:18
  been going on Paxson the whole gen Z Focus.
• 0:22
  The whole bringing Vibrance to a new segment for a 40 year old
• 0:26
  company. Is that right out?
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  I do this back son. Yeah.
• 0:30
  He sells some 40, something else, it's not a new company but
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  all of the Technologies and experiences that you run.
• 0:36
  But before all of that, what would be really useful share
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  any, we could look at, maybe you as a person.
• 0:42
  A lot of the times when I'm with great minds and female or lead
• 0:46
  us, I think I always asked if she could sort of go back in
• 0:51
  time to the early or younger, you, what sort of advice or what
• 0:58
  would you do different or what advice would you give Yourself?
• 1:00
  Yeah, it's a good question. First of all, thank you for
• 1:02
  having me and it's my pleasure to be here.
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  So sharing going back to my time, my whole life, I'm always
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  being technology. So it's my passion, I studied
• 1:13
  computer science. I my entire career is in the
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  internet information technology and I've been dedicating my most
• 1:22
  of my career to the retail industry.
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  And so one of the vice is just keep up with the water and
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  Technology. I mean it's a fantastic Iraq.
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  It's a faster growing that anybody can imagine so my
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  devices keeping their own. Yeah.
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  Did you stop from your technology Trend?
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  Because obviously being see I am now having all of your different
• 1:47
  various parts of Technology. Was that one part that you
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  started off in. I started as a developer, okay?
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  Just saw as a developer developer back in the Mainframe
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  stage and then I experienced all the Technology, different eras,
• 2:04
  write it from Mainframe to client the server, and to cloud,
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  and now to Ai and GPT. So, it's being a fantastic
• 2:12
  journey to think I'm jumping around a bit.
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  Do you think that's why you've been so effective at finding
• 2:19
  these Trends in technology and keeping PacSun in line with
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  that, like social commerce, when I looked at the list of things
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  you like genuinely Filled from a retail perspective, you're ahead
• 2:29
  of Of the curve. Yeah, right.
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  Andrew pack, verse last year, was a great example, right?
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  Because because I talk about how e-commerce and metal loss are,
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  you know, that's what verse was for me.
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  It's a shop. Did it all in a neat digital
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  ecosystem? But is that do you feel that
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  that's what's helped you? The fact that you are a
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  programmer or a techie at heart? Totally.
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  But first off are the success of the brand and including
• 2:57
  technology and our Nation is typically is really a team
• 3:03
  effort to, so he takes the entire tax on exact leadership,
• 3:07
  the entire company. You know, everybody work
• 3:09
  together. Not only information technology
• 3:12
  as well. Everywhere else.
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  The entire company has to embrace this.
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  This culture of you knows trying to stay ahead of the curve,
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  right, to embrace Innovation but myself because I do have this
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  technology background And being a developer knowing how systems
• 3:34
  were developed. Yeah.
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  How things are put together. Yeah, I really helped me to
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  really understand how each application works and it helped
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  me to stay engaged with the best technology providers such as
• 3:50
  Salesforce. Yeah.
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  So that's how I can bring the best technology.
• 3:54
  The cutting-edge technology to apply to business and to support
• 4:00
  Business initiatives and strategies, because as a
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  information, technology in the merchants merchandising company.
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  So we are not like Salesforce or under 10 companies, we are
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  Merchants, right? So, our mission is to sell our
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  faster collection of merchandise to the customers.
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  Yeah, so knowing sort of inside out of Technology, how it works
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  together. Really helps me to vet out to
• 4:28
  the solutions Bring the best fit and the viable solutions to
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  choose support to the business growth.
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  Okay, final question on you and then we'll do think if you could
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  go back again in time and maybe give one piece of advice,
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  obviously. Being from what I said on the
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  first question you were talking about being a passionate or an
• 4:48
  expert in your field. So technology, know your field
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  because that's going to help you later in life, what would you
• 4:55
  what would you like to what would you do again?
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  Or are there any things that you wish We had started or not
• 5:01
  started anything like yeah. So my whole education was
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  focused our computer science. I did learn so much about
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  computer science, how Hardware software, you know, Network
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  everything work together. Yeah, so if I could go back, one
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  thing I could have done better. Yeah, wish I wish that if I had
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  the opportunity I would try to learn other things like Like
• 5:30
  supply chain accounting Finance? Yeah.
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  This is just, you know, expanded the knowledge base.
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  Yeah. Because I learned those along
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  the career along my working, so that you definitely have to
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  spend a lot of time, you know, learning those while you're
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  doing your technology job. So right now, like my
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  daughter's, when they go to college, I really encourage
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  thongs. Doesn't matter what major they
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  end up choosing with what their dreams and passions are.
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  But I do encourage them to learn business.
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  I encourage my daughter to the even HR, you know, and business
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  administration, it called me. Yeah, sustainability is
• 6:12
  environmentalists August, you thought?
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  Yeah, I know, I'm lucky that I'm the technology base the right,
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  but it doesn't mean that everybody getting into this
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  technology report has to be computer science, you know.
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  So you could have studied any Majors.
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  I'm Known people like music become whole.
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  See ya that right any history. Any major but again to stay
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  interested or anything new. So I think expand you know,
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  wherever you can learn especially that's wonderful.
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  Thank you. I think again some to the areas
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  that I'd like to focus on Innovation especially now with
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  AI and how a i is everywhere. And how because I'm generally
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  for there's a secret to what you your success.
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  What do you feel or how? How have you created that
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  culture of innovation with impacts on?
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  And how does that link to the other areas of the business, you
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  know, like merchandising or marketing, how have you been
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  able to bring them on the journey in Innovation?
• 7:13
  Yeah, it's interesting actually. So I yesterday, I was, I sitting
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  in the keynote and it was so fascinating.
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  Seeing how Salesforce, I, you know, took such a early reaction
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  that you have this generative. AI Application ready in business
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  case already. So it was really, really
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  exciting. Yeah but then it I my mind went
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  back to when I was in post. Read my roommate actually.
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  She studied artificial intelligence.
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  Wow, I was like more than 20 years.
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  Yeah. And at that time was she I
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  remember I saw her have like a model that draw the lines and
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  then try to create the artificial intelligence program.
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  So Could then compared to now. Yeah, with predictive AI.
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  Now, the Vesta to generative AI. It's a totally different game.
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  Yeah, and then just with the recent genitive generative AIG
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  PT, I think technology has a different meaning for business.
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  So, for Pakistan again, it is the entire leadership.
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  So we have the culture to embrace the new technology on,
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  try to always Ways because our customers are gen Z.
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  Yeah. Gen C.
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  Customers are very technology Savvy.
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  They always adopted the newest technology for us, right?
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  So the sooner or later, you all where your customers are we are,
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  well, would like, if it's social commerce, you are on Tick-Tock
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  or exactly exact cause our customers aren't he'd call we
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  quickly. Grow more than 2 million
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  followers on I noticed. Yeah, right.
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  So and week in a coma sales as well, right?
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  Do during 2020 or something went up.
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  Yeah it's unbelievable. So so we try to Dedicated devote
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  a lot of our efforts toward the social media because that's
• 9:10
  where our customers are. Yeah.
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  Right so we try to really present any.
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  We started accepting the digital currency?
• 9:20
  Yeah. Back in 2021.
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  So we were one of I think we were the first retail.
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  Quite did you accept? We use a third party.
• 9:30
  D. OK, and then that's their party.
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  Accepts more than 30, digital currency expanding the
• 9:36
  integration was easy. So, that's another thing that I
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  try to share with everyone. Yeah.
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  That it, you don't have to start from scratch.
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  Yeah. We'll have to create your
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  digital wallet. Yeah.
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  Take the Financial Risk. Let's say, you know that, oh my
• 9:50
  gosh. The digital currency journey
• 9:53
  goes. Yeah, I hate up and down and
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  your CFO won't feel comfortable if you ask an expert.
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  But so, what we actually chose is that, we engaged your third
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  part. Yeah.
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  The parts. Our party has everything
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  connected. And I didn't know until we
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  started that it needs approval validation, through the
• 10:14
  government. So they have done everything.
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  So for me, it's a quick connection and in a mood
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  immediately so that we don't take any risks, we don't have to
• 10:24
  prepare like for six months. So those kind of things really
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  Really really Empower us to get to this connection with the
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  customer. So we want to show our customers
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  that we know wherever we see their desired, increasing desire
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  of approaching to digital currency.
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  And here we are. We offer you.
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  We truly listened to love and then we offered, is outside 1/4
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  or sometimes, like, I mean, the whole sales force being customer
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  obsessed, right? It feels like I have to say
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  this. You're one of the few technology
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  people that it's customer up. S and being able to bring that
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  to Market. Yes.
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  And I think that's the main like, especially with AI.
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  How did you bring a? I mean, a lot of people say ml
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  or predictive and they try and dress that up as AI, but just
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  focusing in on your customers, your gen Z customers.
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  How are you serving them? How are you, what's the data
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  points that using how, how do you know what they want?
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  Yeah, that's a good question. So I think the recent years so
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  Salesforce have this data Cloud. So we also put together Er, a
• 11:30
  customer data Cloud that you Aggregate and orchestrate, all
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  the customer Centric data. So there you really understand
• 11:40
  your customers better, their behavior, their shopping
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  Behavior, their reaction, and all the marketing Outreach
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  etcetera. So you can truly tailor your
• 11:53
  messages that when you try to engage with your customers.
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  So all those kind of analytics, Rai Powered.
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  So it has the predictive capability, but, you know, now
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  we have just leapfrogged it to the next level of AI, which is
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  generated, right. So the generative AI helps you
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  to engage with the customers. And so I was really excited that
• 12:20
  while I was looking for AI Solutions, such as to automate,
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  the item description attribution based on the the the The
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  merchandise photo because we design and we have things on
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  your website we cannot yet. Okay.
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  I'm waiting for our cell phones. Yeah I was causing some startup
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  companies who specialize in that area.
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  Yeah. So you have the merchandise
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  photos on the model, you know, on the display and then the AI
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  can also determine based on material the style and generate
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  the description and attribution. So I was talking to The one,
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  just a month ago. Yeah.
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  But all of a sudden today and I was looking for.
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  Okay so somebody started that that AI initiative got and I was
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  wondering what about generated now.
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  It's a totally different game. What are you doing?
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  So today huge surprise it that to Keynote was tailored to
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  answer my questions. Yeah here you go.
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  So sales words are already put that in place so that we saw
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  that 8U the AI generated and Yuri.
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  Review and approve it. Yeah.
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  That the the important piece is that