Latest / SHeCOMMERCE / Episode 21 - Lauren Livak, Rethinking Success in the Age of Agentic Transformation

Transcript

Episode 21 - Lauren Livak, Rethinking Success in the Age of Agentic Transformation · SHeCOMMERCE

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to SheCommerce, where power women and real talk collide in the CPG world.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Christina.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm Jackie.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_03: And today we are coming in hot because we have a very fun episode with the one and only amazing powerhouse from the Digital Shelf Institute.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Watch this.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Give it away early.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: We gotta make our listeners wait, like build up that anticipation.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Are you are you are you saying I can't keep a secret, Christina?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, you can.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: You can.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fine.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, The Secret's Out about a new Netflix movie that we are not getting paid by Netflix to promote, but ladies, you definitely have to take, I think it's like a 90-minute movie to watch this show.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is called Ladies First on Netflix, and we both watched it this weekend.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_03: And let me guess, you started out thinking it was entertainment and ended up rage texting your friends.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that we did.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: We had our own sub-conversation about it, but definitely want to bring it forward to our audience here, right?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_03: Completely.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_03: Be ambitious, but not too ambitious.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_03: Be confident, but not intimidating.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_03: Be successful, but somehow still make everyone around you like you and comfortable.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And make sure you look amazing while doing all of it.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And God forbid a woman ages.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_03: Or gets emotional.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Or doesn't get emotional enough.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Then something's obviously broken within her.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or asks for money.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Or how about this one?
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Takes credit for her own work.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh stop.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Promotes herself.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's that's crazy?
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: Don't be crazy.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_03: That's crazy talk.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_03: Meanwhile, men walk into those meetings with half the preparation, twice the confidence of a fricking Roman emperor.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think that that confidence gap is truly one of the world's most fascinating just natural occurrences.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I know later on in our episode, we're gonna dig into some of that a little bit.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_03: David Attenborough would have a field day, wouldn't he?
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_03: Look at the male species in his element.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_03: But what struck me about this show though was that none of these biases are new, Christina.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_03: They're just packaged differently now.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we love telling ourselves that we have made so much progress, and we have, absolutely, we have.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But somehow women are still navigating, you know, a completely different set of rules, and they are still, there's still a bias being held against them.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Completely.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, that's what we're talking about today.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: Not just what we saw on Netflix, but what it reveals about leadership, ambition, power, and the invisible standards women still face every single day.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously the movie pokes, you know, humor at it and takes some topics and over-exaggerates them to make the point.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's just so telling that when you see it from that perspective, and if a man had to deal with all the things that women just take on on a daily basis, how much more apparent that that bias would be and how ludicrous some of these things are that we have just had to grin and bear for, you know, centuries.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_03: Did you find, Christina, that when they were doing that piece around the woman, and not to give too much away, where she was a hire for perception purposes?
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_03: Were you sitting there going?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, yes.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_03: A box taking exercise.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_03: I've been that box.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm sitting there going, I and and it didn't even surprise you.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: It didn't even, it didn't even make you think twice.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: And then when it flipped, you're like, my gosh, well, look at that.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: Because, and of course it's exaggerated, but immediately you're thinking, Oh, well, that's different.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_03: Well, you're not gonna like that.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_03: And we have been conditioned to accept it as, well, that's just the way it is, for the way that we're treated, which when we see it flipped, completely different reaction, even from us.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, even from us.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think you get numb to some of these things, but sometimes we need that wake-up call to say, no, no, no, wait, this isn't the way it should be, and it's not the way it needs to be.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, hopefully, She Commerce can be part of that wake-up call for the broader community as we surface some of these issues on the show.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amen, sister.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so enough about that.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Watch the show, come back to us, tell us what you liked, what you didn't like, and how, if you relate it or not.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's fill some tea, shall we?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_03: Now, back in the olden days, before children and work, like heavy work and family and DIY and all of the things, I was a please don't come at me, huge Bruins fan.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: Loved hockey.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_03: Ice hockey, folks, ice hockey.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: Loved it.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_03: And most recently, Julie Yuffie was promoted to be an the executive vice president and managing director of international at the NHL people.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_03: That's the National Hockey League, for those of you who don't follow hockey.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I I knew that, just disclaimer.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, you totally did.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: Like you're a sports job for sure.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: But I mean, I I'm sitting here going, oh my god, oh my god, and all those games that I watched, all those games that I watched when I was a kid, thinking, wouldn't it be great if women, wouldn't it be great if a woman was?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_03: Wouldn't it be I wonder what it would be like if a woman could?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_03: And a woman has, a woman is, and is leading the NHL from an international perspective.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: And I just I'm like, yes, Julie, oh my god, you legend.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: And and and this isn't somebody just picked out of obscurity.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: This is a woman who has spent 13 years building some of the biggest and most beloved beverage brands at and Huser Bow Boosh.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: I can't.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_03: I can't, I can't say these.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: My goodness.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_03: I know, I know.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_03: I apologize.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: And I apologize and Diagio, Diageo, I can say.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's incredible.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: It's incredible to see Julie step into this next chapter.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: And oh my god, I am here for it.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, congratulations.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Weren't you the one who told me that you wanted to marry a hockey player at some point or you thought you would?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: Is that you?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Do I remember that correctly?
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't tell anyone, don't worry, no one's listening.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: But yes, oh my god, it was I was I was definitely marrying a hockey player.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_03: I won't tell you who, but I was definitely marrying but many hockey players.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Multiple team, basically.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, I wasn't greedy.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it funny?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it funny how life turns out?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_03: Did marry spoiler alert, did not marry a hockey player, folks.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: Or a whole team.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But here we are.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um before we get too inappropriate, we're gonna move on to industry news.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: So uh Amazon, Amazon, we can't talk, we can't do an episode without talking AI, right?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so Amazon Freight is using AI machine learning and optimization algorithms and even computer vision to make their transportation network safer, which I love, smarter, and more efficient.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is not just AI for the sake of AI or for you know fluffy sake.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's they're not just saying this to put it in a press release.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: This is doing the unsexy part of AI that we talk so much about.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is critical work.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is about planning their routes out, having better predicted predictions around ETAs, when there's disruptions, safety validation for their trucks and drivers.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I I love this.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's real efficiency, real value back to the business and back to their consumers.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is the real deal, right?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is where AI gets really interesting for CPG.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because we talk about AI a lot in content, uh, retail media, personalization, search, all very shiny, very ooh, sparkly.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_03: But supply chain AI, I mean supply chain.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_03: Who talks about supply chain?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_03: But this is where margin service levels, driver experience, and customer expectations all collide.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: You just wanted to say that because of the sound effect.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, Amazon shared this news and that they're using the AI optimization, machine learning to better trailer handoff opportunities, right?
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: For basically when they have these long-haul moves, they can move more efficient efficiently and also allow drivers to spend fewer nights away from home.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like they need to talk about that more because we know for truck drivers out there, it's a hard life.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And it's especially hard to be away from your family.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this side note may open the door to more female truck drivers that now don't have to, you know, be a parent from the road.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: They can be home more and still do that type of work.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, they're using their algorithms to also do more predictive route disruptions and calculate like the likelihood of on-time arrival and to re-optimize when you know the best laid plans go sideways, the weather doesn't cooperate, you know, maybe there's an accident or traffic of some sort, etc.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, slight side note when I was a kid, I wanted to be a long distance truck driver called Clara.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_03: Clara?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: I was gonna be called, I had a song and everything.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: I was long distance Clara.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I was wait, you're just telling me this now?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't prepare me for that on the episode?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Jeez.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I don't even know you, Jackie.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the from marrying a hockey player to being a long-distance truck driver to changing her name.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_03: Here's here's the irony.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: I don't even have a driver's license.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's true.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: True story, true story.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know you have to get like an additional license to drive a truck line.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: I know a few additional licenses because there's huge, right?
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_03: I had I had dreams, Christina.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: I had dreams and plans.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_04: Big dreams.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: But going back to this brilliant, brilliant story, uh, a piece of news, it's the say the one of the one of the most important things is the safety piece, right?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: Amazon is leaning into computer vision through a photo validation for trailer release feature, as you talked about, where a photo of the trailer is reviewed before release.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: If the system detects a safety issue, like missing straps, the trailer stays grounded until it's fixed.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I just I I I I cannot tell you how much I love this.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's, you know, no, it's not pretty and shiny and and you know, contendy and all of that stuff, but the practical application of this, and exactly like you said, where this now makes it a little more viable for women to take this on board as one as a role, because it would actually reduce the number of days that they are on uh on the road.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's it's mind-boggling.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean, just think of all the different applications of that computer vision and those types of safety standards that it can be put in place for.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just endless opportunities.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the the so what now what?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is AI, once again, that not just changing how consumers discover products and buy products, which we know and we talk about a lot, but now it's changing how those products move and how they get to completely.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: And for brands, that means the commerce conversation has just gotten bigger.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just media to shelf anymore, it's media to shelf to supply chain to and here's Amazon once again reminding everyone that commerce is not just what happens at the shelf, physical or digital.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's what happens before the shelf and beyond the basket.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Always beyond the basket, baby.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now let's welcome our guest.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Our next guest bridges the gap between marketing ambition and real-world execution.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_03: One perfectly optimized workflow at a time.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_03: She is the executive director of the Digital Shelf Institute and one of the most trusted voices in digital commerce when it comes to turning complexity into clarity.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_03: If you've ever wondered why your content isn't converting, your teams aren't aligned, or your tech stack feels a little chaotic, she probably has already diagnosed a problem and written the playbook to fix it.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_03: From demystifying the digital shelf to helping brands actually operationalize retail media, this powerhouse sits at the intersection of strategy, education, and activation and is on a mission to make e-commerce work smarter, not harder.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: In this episode, we're diving into the realities behind scaling digital shelf success, what brands are still getting wrong, and how to build a kind of cross-functional muscle that drives real growth.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: So if you're ready for less theory and more, this is how you actually do it.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm not gonna sing that line, Christina.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is how you do it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: I will.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: Darn it.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: Friends, I apologize, but please put your hands together and welcome the inimitable Lauren Levac to the She Commerce hot seat.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_03: Lauren, welcome.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: It is a joy to have you join us.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: What a great intro.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, can I take you everywhere I go?
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'll just attach you to all of my all of my peers.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me, ladies.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, Lauren and I know each other.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: We go back to our JJ days so I can attest to how wonderful Lauren is in reality and in the work environment.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it is so great to be with you and have the ability to unpack all those thoughts that go into your head.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as Jackie said, you are really transforming the industry and a thought leader.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for being with us.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, of course.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it is kind of crazy when we think about it, Christina, going back to our JJ days.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: It feels like yesterday, but it was like six or seven years ago.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: So uh blast from the past.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Hey, but you guys started at 15.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: So I mean Obviously.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So, Lauren, you're very outspoken about a number of topics in the industry, but specifically around AI.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you have gone on record and and said something that definitely caught us our attention, which is that AI efficiency is not, I repeat, not a measure of success.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So if efficiency isn't the KPI, what should leaders actually be measuring?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a it's a good question.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's a conversation I have a lot lately.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_02: The reason why I say it is because efficiency doesn't necessarily get to value or outcome.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_02: So the way that a lot of organizations are tackling AI right now is they're like, oh, like add AI, let's do it.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do it faster, let's be more efficient, let's be scalable.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that might be a great entryway into testing things out, but just because you're doing something faster doesn't mean you're getting to a specific outcome or you're driving more value for your organization.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: So I find that a lot of brands are actually stuck in what you might hear people call pilot purgatory, where they're like, oh, I have all these amazing pilots and we're gonna do things faster, but they're not seeing any ROI.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a ton of statistics that have come out about this, a lot of surveys that have been done, and most organizations just really don't see any value coming from what they're doing.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_02: And that's because I don't think they're asking, what is the problem I'm trying to solve or what is the outcome I'm trying to drive?
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're just doing AI.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 100% agree.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, what metrics do you think, besides, you know, fastest or improving?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because faster doesn't equal better all the time.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, what what are some of those other metrics that might be giving them a false sense of security or a false sense of value of the process right now?
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Usage.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people think, oh, like if my employees are using AI, then like we're driving more efficiency, but usage doesn't really tell you a lot because yeah, maybe they're writing emails faster or they're brainstorming with it, but again, like you're not actually connecting it to a bigger problem to solve.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I think about like the days of e-com, and Christina, I know you know this because we were in this together, like it's like fitting a square peg into a round hole, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like you can't just shove e-commerce into an organization that was built 150 years of in-store shopping, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like people are trying to fit another square peg into another round hole with AI, and they're not rethinking how they work, and they're just attaching something that's already broken, and they're not rethinking their processes or their teams or their organizations.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so these metrics are not actually driving anything.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I think in order to get to a metric that actually points to value or points to a very clear outcome, it takes a lot of change in many different functions across the organization.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's why we haven't seen it that much thus far.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: So taking what you've just said, Lauren, uh, about you know, the same sort of square peg and round hole, you know, everybody seems to be adding AI to job titles and company strategies right now, right?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: And and and again, like you say, they haven't prepared for it, they're just trying to shoehorn that.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_03: What would you say is is performative AI adoption versus meaningful transformation?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: What an excellent question, Jackie.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think I think to the time of back to e-commerce again.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_02: If e-commerce was on the mouths of executives and boards the way AI was, we would be in such a different place.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think the hype is so loud, the conversation is so loud.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so the performative element is you have a leadership team saying we need to do more with AI.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: Do AI at AI.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so people are trying to figure out what that looks like, right?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because there's a mandate and there's also a FOMO element, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like people are afraid, like, if we don't do it, someone else is gonna do it and we should be doing this.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's not really going to get you to an end result.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: The brands that I've seen who are really successful are actually mapping out from start to finish, let's say, for example, for like new product development.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: You clearly understand your process from end to end.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: And instead of just fixing steps three, 37, and 42, you're completely reimagining how you're doing things and saying, hey, like let's think about this totally differently.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's one person working with a team of five agents.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we don't need all of these steps in here and we can get rid of some of these approvals.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_02: So it's actually sitting down and it's harder.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: It takes longer.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_02: There's more people involved, it's risky, right?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_02: So there's all of the reasons why a lot of organizations haven't gotten to that point.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: But sitting in a room, getting everyone together, and I like to call it kind of the clean sheet of paper approach.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is the beautiful utopia of what we want?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: And let's try to back into that versus just fixing something that we've been doing for 50 years.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and Lauren, you talked a lot about that, right?
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: You almost need to like break stuff and start over.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's better.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, that is a scary place, right?
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because the, you know, if they always say, right, don't if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it may not be completely broke, but you're saying, no, break it, break it.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um and let's rebuild from scratch and put the work in up front to have the payoff later.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: So when how do leaders though maybe balance protecting what is working in the business while breaking stuff, while reinventing it, to your point?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I think the the broken piece is look at your organization.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: Are you growing and are you profitable?
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_02: Then I would say your process needs to break, right?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I try to be cautious as I come in and have conversations because I worked at a CPG company.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: I understand it takes it takes a long time to move a cruise ship.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't take a long time to move a speedboat.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a difference between large organizations and startups.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: So to your point, Christina, I would say number one, understanding full visibility of your processes, your systems, your teams.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's like number one.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then work on the stuff that's the loudest, right?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like what's broken, what's taking the longest.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: Think about how you can reinvent and reimagine that and figure out who needs to be involved to have those conversations.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_02: Get a cross-functional task force together.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of larger organizations are starting AI task forces so that you can bring in people from supply chain, from marketing, from RD, from e-com and actually like have these conversations.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not completely breaking things and starting from scratch, because I know that that is just not possible at large organizations.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_02: But start having conversations about titles and job descriptions.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Should it be an omnichannel rule versus just sales and marketing?
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: Should you have one commercial leader that owns sales and marketing so you can have visibility across the board?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: So there's steps you can take and things you can think about instead of just.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of breaking everything and starting from scratch, but you really need to first make sure you have everybody on on board from the top down, bottoms up, cross-functionally.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that really starts with like very, very clear goals and outcomes and support from the leadership to really make this change.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_03: My husband would be your number one fan because his mantra, you didn't expect that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, where are we going with this?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_03: His mantra is if you want to get if you want to have an omelet, you gotta break some eggs.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, 100%.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, 100%.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I love that.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: I also hate it, but I love that.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: This is it on you.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: We don't like it in this situation.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: But such a great, it's such a great example, though.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we've been living in a world where it was okay to tack on e-commerce and people were still seeing growth.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: Like organizations were seeing growth in the beginning.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's challenging now if we're not changing infrastructure.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_02: But this change with AI is so much faster.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I always say it's like we've seen a change like this before, but this time it can't take 10 years for us to get there because the pace is just exponentially faster and the playing field is leveled.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: If you're someone who started in your garage, you have access to Claude, Gemini, and ChatGPT the same as a CPG company who's been around for 250 years.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: So what are you leveraging?
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can build a campaign, you can have a manager campaign.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and a company of one can have a team of 20 agents who are churning things out the same way a team of 20 humans can, right?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_02: So it just, it just changes the game.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it really requires, you said the word, Christina, I say it a lot, reinvention, like really reinventing how you think, how you learn, how you work, how you make decisions.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: And that's what's really going to propel organizations forward.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: I think, I think as well, Lauren, it's the it's the adaptability.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_03: It is absolutely the adaptability every time something like this happens, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: And it just so happens that this time it's hitting so many more industries and so many more levels of people.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: But every time something like this happens, the people who succeed are the ones who pivot and adapt to change.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I and change is constant.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: That is the one constant.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: And you, if you don't adapt or pivot to that change, you are absolutely going to be left behind because honey, change is absolutely coming down the road.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: A hundred percent.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_02: And and e-commerce was a big change like that, right?
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_02: But like majority of in-source, the majority of sales are still in-store, right?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's still an 80-20 for a lot of organizations and a lot of industries.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: But you said it, Jackie.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_02: AI hits every single function, every single element of your organization.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: And if you don't figure out a way to be AI enabled and think about talent, work with your HR teams, think about job descriptions, think about change management, it's just gonna move so fast past you and it's gonna be really hard to keep up.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it just creates such a disadvantage for you.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're you know, hurting yourself, holding yourself back when everyone else is adopting it.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_03: 100% agree.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: Working staying with the AI uh theme, you uh some time ago you joked about AI being fairy dust and sprinkling it everywhere.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_03: How do brands experiment broadly without creating a lot of chaos?
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's funny.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: That came from a I was on a call with a brand, and they were like, well, we're just gonna throw AI on this.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, you know, that process doesn't really make a lot of sense right now.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should rethink that.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's the approach a lot of organizations are taking, and it's just not going to work.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of going back to our first question, you need to understand the problem you're trying to solve, get to the outcome, like make sure you're clear on the value.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, this is the time to test and learn and experiment, but it's not the time to have 50 pilots and then take them nowhere.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: So the what I would suggest for brands is number one, look inside your organization.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of brands come to me and say, like, okay, what companies should I collaborate with?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what data do I need to acquire?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, just take a step back.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever talked to your consumer care center?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever used all the data you have from your call center?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Have you ever thought about doing focus groups with the people that you already have?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Have you tried to use AI tools inside your organization?
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: Have you talked to your IT team?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_02: Like, start there, then talk to your existing partners and be like, hey, what capabilities do you have?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_02: What can we test?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: What can we pilot?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: Then you can think about like, okay, what additional technology or capabilities would I need?
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: And also, like, where is there an opportunity to pilot?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: But in those pilots, very clearly define what is the problem that this is solving for me?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: And what does good look like?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_02: And once we get to a point that we're like, okay, great, this pilot was amazing.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: What happens next?
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_02: Clearly defining who owns it, how you're going to integrate it into your overall process, and then what are the next steps?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_02: So think about like I use the example of content development a lot because I spend a lot of time in that space, right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_02: What if you're testing a pilot to use AI to optimize some of your content for your PDPs, whether it's titles or descriptions?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you run a pilot for three, four weeks, and then you see an increase in conversion on your PDPs.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing, great, awesome pilot.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_02: You're driving conversion.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_02: That's a great outcome for you.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now make sure you build that into your existing process, into your existing workflows.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: You train everyone outside of just that pilot, and then it gets integrated into what you're doing versus just like, hey, we saw this cool thing happen and now it's gonna go die.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm hearing, Lauren, is this is not like the Oprah of AI where you get AI and you get AI and you're doing AI.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: But rather, rather, it's being very intentional about, you know, where you're applying AI, how you're applying AI, and then you know, having a full learning loop attached to that to really, you know, scale and learn from learn from it and scale if appropriate.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And you kind of started touching on this, right?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's obviously doing their pilots and talking about it, but there's a lot that happens or should be happening maybe to make it successful behind the scenes that maybe leaders underestimate as they're doing these AI transformations and pilots.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you talk maybe a little bit about what maybe needs to happen or what you should plan for in terms of that change management, governance, right?
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_00: Talent.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: You speak a lot about that to make the new AI ecosystem successful.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_02: You were moving into this world of agenc transformation.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: So all brands have been going through digital transformation for the past 30 years, potentially, depending on kind of where they started in their e-commerce journey.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, that doesn't end.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: They still need to continue doing digital transformation, but we now have this new era called agenc transformation.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And there's this pivot point where you now have two transformations happening at once.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: An agenc transformation can help accelerate a lot of the work that you've done around digital.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: But to your point, Christine, you need to be super intentional about it.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: And it's more than just what people are talking about right now.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_02: And what I mean by that is when you say AI, especially in the digital shelf space, you hear AEO, answer engine optimization, GEO, agentic commerce.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, those are things you need to listen to, learn, think about.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: But the really big challenge, and I would argue the harder part, is the internal transformation that needs to happen inside your organization to become AI enabled.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I have this kind of like framework that I talk through.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the first piece of that framework is like the foundation of data and technology.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you do not have your data in one source of truth and have a product experience management platform and be very clear about who owns it and where it lives, you can stop the AI conversation right there because you will be unsuccessful.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, full stop.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, data is the number one piece here.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: AI is an amplifier, but it amplifies the good and the bad.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_02: So if you have bad data, you're gonna have a bad experience with AI.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_02: So, really kind of getting that foundation right, and then talking about things like talent and culture.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: This is a massive cultural change for all of us, right?
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like all three of us on here, everybody who's listening, we're all trying to figure this out.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, there's no experts on this because it is moving so quickly and we're all just learning.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: But there's a lot of human psychology behind this where people don't know what their jobs are gonna look like.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_02: They're concerned, they're scared.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's a massive cultural change that needs to happen in terms of what is my job description?
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_02: What does success look like in my role if I'm working with agents?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: How am I being measured?
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: What is the talent plan for the future, right?
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: We might not need analysts to do forecasting anymore.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_02: But then how do you teach that analyst to become a general manager in the future if they don't cut their teeth on all the things that we spent most of the early career of ours doing, right?
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of those pieces, and then you get into like education and change management, which is super, super critical.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_02: You need to educate every single level of the organization.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_02: I did a survey with the DSI audience, and I was like, okay, like how many people think that AI is going to like fundamentally change what they do?
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like 95%.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then I was like, okay, how many people feel like they have the tools and the education to get there?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: And it was like 30%.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, well, that's a big discrepancy.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: There's a massive skill gap.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_02: So you really, really need to address that.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then the the piece of the framework that I'm the most passionate about, and I think is the place that most organizations need to concentrate, is your operating model and your context and governance.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the operating model piece, and I talk a lot about org structures, the org structures of the past are not set up for the future.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_02: They're very siloed, they're very like sales structure, marketing structure.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe we don't talk to each other.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that needs to really kind of change, and and roles are going to get a bit more hybrid and combined, where they turn into omnichannel roles versus just very specific functional roles.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: So rethinking that kind of operating plan and then really thinking about that context layer.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: So if anyone is really interested in AI and has been doing a lot of research and thinking about like AEO and agentic commerce, one of the critical pieces for LLMs is context.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: So adding additional information that gives the LLM an understanding of what product to recommend or what answer to give you.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And that applies to your organization too.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_02: You need to create this level of context for your whole organization about your products, your brands, the campaigns you're running, all of the events that you're doing, all of the promotions, your pricing.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: You need to build this context layer that we've never really needed in the past.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: And it needs to be connected cross-functionally.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: So anyone inside the organization can interact with that context layer and have all the information.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then that can be translated externally.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: So if Jane from Wisconsin uses Chat GPT to search for your product and asks, is it good for my five-year-old in the rain?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_02: You have that context to be able to provide the right product recommendation.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I said a lot of things, but there's there's a lot of moving pieces here.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_02: But those are kind of some of the elements that I spend spend time thinking about.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: Lauren, you're like a master class in things to think about with the whole AI piece.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like, wow.
• 34:11
  unknown: Thank you.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: Spend a lot of time talking about this.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, yeah.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_02: Not at all, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_03: I want to take, I want to take a step back and I want to go back to what you were talking about, agentic transformation, right?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_03: Now we have some listeners who are in this who may not be deep in the space, but they are currently listening and they are now silently freaking out about oh my god, there are so many letters for me to think about.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_03: Let's start with agentic because you hear that a lot.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_03: What does this mean?
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: And why should CPG leaders care?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or actually, should they care?
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, great question.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_02: And another good moment to pause and take a step back because our industry has not decided on terms yet or definitions.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: And so I challenge anybody who's listening, if you're working with a technology company or a capability or just anyone, clarify what they mean when they're talking about this.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you hear agentic, the agentic shelf.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: So when I think about the agentic shelf, I think about if I'm going to a Chat GPT or I'm using Alexa for shopping, previously Ruth is or Sparky, I'm on the agenc shelf because I'm interacting with an agent who's providing recommendations about a product.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_02: Agentic commerce is another world and another term that people talk about.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_02: There is no clear definition of this, and everybody has a different definition.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_02: The way I look at agentic commerce is that it is full autonomous actions from an agent making a purchase on your behalf.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_02: When you think about the announcements that came out from Google now, what it was it like a couple of weeks ago, where they announced like the universal shopping cart and Spark in Gemini, which is an autonomous agent who can make purchases on your behalf.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Spark is an example of agentic commerce, in my opinion.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_02: I look at agentic commerce on a spectrum, and I think we're in the world of agentic discovery, which is most consumers go to ChatGPT and say, what is the best outfit to wear to can lions?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like they're they're going and they're asking questions and they're discovering products.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that's I didn't do that.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: Did you read Jackie's chat history?
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_02: We may have talked about this, so I have some recommendations.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_02: But that's the agentic discovery piece.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where the majority of people spend their time today in agentic discovery interacting in a chat kind of environment.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_02: Most uh consumers are not on the agentic full autonomous agentic commerce side because there's a gap in trust.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: But that's how I kind of think about those big pieces.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then whether you choose the acronym AEO, GEO, AIO, insert acronym here, it's making sure that your content is machine readable and your product is being discovered by the LLM.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_02: That's another focus area, and just focusing on the PDP and what are the elements that the agents are reading.
• 37:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: Great points.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I often talk about the Agentic Commerce experience being a light version of it now because to your point, I think it is mostly upper funnel discovery, and then that is taken to some other channel, right, or offline to kind of complete the purchase or do more research.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_00: So 100%.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to talk about something that nobody really wants to ask, and that's the PL question.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, lots of buzz, excitement, shiny new thing, AI, but not a lot of discussion around the investment required and what does it actually cost to become an AI-enabled organization?
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think this you've touched on a little bit, right?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: About, you know, not half-assing it or just putting it as a band-aid or something exciting project of here, but really like thinking about that operating model and breaking it, breaking it down and then rebuilding from there.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's like huge, there's a huge cost to that, right?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And in your opinion, do you think companies are underestimating what that financial commitment looks like?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: And also are they maybe impatient around when they're gonna start to see a return if they are making that investment in like what's realistic?
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes and yes.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I actually have some data.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_02: I was excited for this question to come up because we did a survey with the DSI audience, and like I said, 95% of people said, like, yes, AI is gonna fundamentally change everything.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_02: But then I asked, are you going, what are you gonna do with your budgets around AI?
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_02: Are you gonna decrease, remain flat, increase?
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_02: 42% said they're going to remain flat and not going to dedicate budget.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_02: And 44% said increase moderately.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, that's a big discrepancy because it does require a lot of investment in the beginning to see a return from an AI perspective.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you want to be an AI-enabled organization, you need an internal agent.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_02: You need to have some sort of tools that your organization is using, you need to educate those people on those tools, and you need to change processes and ways of working.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_02: And that takes time, takes dedicated resources, and it does take a specific budget allocated for it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_02: So, to your original question, question, Christina, I do not think that it is being built into how mostly CPG companies are kind of thinking about AI.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: And there is this anxiety around return because of the hype.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_02: And I just encourage people to like really take a step back, take a deep breath, and really understand like what do I need to care about?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because from an external perspective, like on your PDP and the content that you're doing, it's slight tweaks, it's not a huge overhaul.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_02: But from an internal perspective, it does take a lot of change and reworking and rethinking and investing in tools and working with AI, with IT or your tech team to be able to support all of these changes in capabilities.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_02: And it's going to impact your PL.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_02: And right now, from an agentic commerce and just an overall kind of agentic discovery perspective, measurement is hard.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_02: Think about the early days of e-comm.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like we were like, we know it's important.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_02: We know people are doing it, but we cannot see on the PL what's in what's an in-store sale versus what's an e-comm sale.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_02: But just know that it is going to pay out.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: And it did.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: And we're kind of there from an AI perspective, from a from a measurement standpoint.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's a little unclear about how to say, like, I did this and it had this impact.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_02: There's some pockets where you can see that, but I just really encourage people to really allocate money for testing and learning, for infrastructure changes, and understanding, yeah, this is gonna hit your PL, but you're going to see returns.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_02: You just have to have more of a long-term focus.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: I also think it's the opportunity cost of not 100% left behind, right?
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the competitive disadvantage it would create, thinking about it that way.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, it amplifying the bad potentially versus doing this the right way and amplifying the good.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: And history repeats itself.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just keep going back to e-comm.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we've all been in this industry.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: E-com's been around for like 33 years if you count like the first sale on Amazon, right?
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_02: But like really commercially, not for that long.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's a newer industry, I'm air quoting, you know, like in-store shopping has been around for 200, 300, four, how depending on how you count, like hundreds of years.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_02: So we can learn from what we've seen around e-com, where everyone's like, no one will buy groceries on the internet.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_02: I haven't been to a grocery store in years.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I buy groceries on the internet.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we know this is gonna be a change.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_02: We know this is gonna be significant.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's learn from what we've seen in the past and say, we need to invest in this.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_02: This is what we're gonna do, this is the value it's gonna drive.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_02: And like, we believe in this long term.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_02: Preach.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_02: I know it's not easy, believe me.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_02: I've been I've been on the other side, but I agree.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_02: The cost of doing nothing is just so much bigger.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_03: Huge, huge in this instant situation.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_03: So, one of the things you've said before, Lauren, is that your advice was to not throw away existing strategies.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_03: So, and you've talked about experimentation and A-B testing, is is a huge deal and is so incredibly important.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_03: Why is that the right play right now versus full-scale transformation?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: You know, kind of like bite the bullet and just go all in.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you can look at it in kind of two buckets.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_02: When you think about like how your organization is working and your culture and your talent and your op plan and all of that, like go to town, reinvent, transform, like this is the time.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_02: But when you think about your strategy for your PDP, for your content, test out what's working from your title, from your images, from your enhanced content.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: What does machine readable content look like?
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_02: And the reason I say don't like fully overhaul your strategy there is because the fundamentals of the digital shelf fuel the agentic shelf, and the agentic shelf is in flux.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't want to overhaul everything because it's changing so rapidly in terms of what are the LLMs ingesting?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: What does trust look like?
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_02: Do they have instant checkout, right?
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_02: That went away.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do they have comparison charts?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's the new thing.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, from an external content perspective and your strategy around that, that's why I suggest people test and learn, make sure they understand the space, make sure they do have some elements of machine readable content.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Focus a lot on your brand.com.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: You own that.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: That now has a resurrection in the brand world where previously it was a where to buy tool that people kind of ignored.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_02: Now agents are scraping.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: That as long as you allow them, double check that first.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_02: But that is a great opportunity.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: Like, spend time on brand.com.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why I always encourage people like, don't put all your eggs in the AEO basket.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you still need to worry about SEO.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_02: You still need to have your digital shelf strategy, but just do some tweaks and test some things out.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_02: But internally, figure out how to reinvent your org structures and how to be more AI enabled.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: Because that takes way longer.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_03: The statement you just made, what does trust look like?
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: Is it's everything.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, I love that.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's crazy because in an LLM world, trust means citations and trust means being talked about, and trust means accurate, consistent content across every channel.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_02: And you can't really fake that, you know?
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just uh it's a very different world for brands.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's unfortunately it's more work, right?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I was presenting to a brand the other day, and I was like, just because you have AI doesn't mean that it's less work, it actually means it's more work and more things gonna come out.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I think to your point, investing in the data and the foundations is no matter where this goes with AI or what may change tomorrow, new capabilities, there's a payoff there.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that is going to, you know, pay out the and then some for you in other parts of the organization.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, if you're gonna start anywhere, to your point, start there.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_02: And and and it takes time.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of organizations I work with don't even know where the data is, they don't know who owns it, they don't know what data they have, they don't know what data they need.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like it is such a critical element of this that you should have started that yesterday.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, if you're not doing that, then that's really your kind of number one piece.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_02: And watch the LLMs, they are connecting directly with brand feeds now.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: They're they're trying to get content directly from the brands instead of scraping.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you want to be one of those pilot brands that is providing that information to LLMs.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_02: You can't do that if you don't have a source of truth.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_02: So it's just really important to start there.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not you know what some random person in wherever Kansas may have said on influencing the content, shaping the content that is being shown.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_03: Almost uh ironically, optimizing for SEO is gonna drive your AEO almost, right?
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, there's a lot of it's funny, like I said, this industry.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, back to the roots.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's a lot of varying opinions about this in the space, right?
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's a moving target.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at a lot of like tests that have been done, SEO is fueling AEO, like because the LLMs are searching the internet, and the internet is optimized for SEO, right?
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a lot of commonality when you look at the the things that they're looking for from con they the LLMs are looking for for context and for information about your products.
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_02: So all of that work does not go to waste, and you still really need to focus on, and it's really kind of fueling that that next future.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, before we move on to the she side, just one last question here.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: As you're starting to do some of these tests, and I know we've talked about being patient and and the payoff may be coming later.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are there any, you know, early signals that would give you some evidence that this is this is actually starting to work?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: What are what are some of those that you can see?
• 47:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I have actually have two examples.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_02: So um I just launched uh a combined research report with AZOMA on the five C's of agentic commerce, and we did some research around kind of what was working for brands from a citation perspective and from a content creation perspective.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_02: And one brand was having an issue with one of their products, and an influencer was talking about a product, and they were providing incorrect information, let's just say, about the product and some of the like safety elements of it.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so the brand was like, okay, let's go on brand.com, use similar language and have very clear like scientific claims and papers to back up the fact that that information is not true.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_02: They did that, and in 24 hours, they saw a change in what LLMs were actually surfacing about that product.
• 48:19
  SPEAKER_02: It was previously referencing the influencer, and then it started reference referencing the brand.com.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_02: So to me, like that's a very clear strategy where the work that you're doing on brand.com and with your content is actually impacting agentic discovery.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: And then there was another example where a brand wasn't showing up in LLM Discovery, and they really wanted to be part of some of the like recipes that were being talked about for the specific season.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_02: And so they created a blog on their brand.com.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_02: They worked with their PR and corporate comms team and got a place, uh, like a citation in a specific blog online.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_02: And within, I think it was like, I think it was a week, they saw that they were then being surfaced on LLMs because of that new fresh content that came out.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_02: So we're seeing signs that it really is working if you're focusing on the elements that are fueling the agenc shelf and you have the right strategy and you're thinking about context and complete content and brand consistency.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, from a brand perspective, I would just really encourage you to experiment, like go on, talk to different LLMs, see what your products are coming out as.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_02: Go to Amazon, ask Alexa Shopping about your product.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_02: Every single example question that that Alexa Shopping provides to you needs to be answered in your PDP.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_02: And there's very clear results from brands.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_02: If you answer those questions, you will be recommended more.
• 49:49
  SPEAKER_02: So we're definitely seeing signs of it.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: I think the challenge is doing it more broadly around like a category because LLMs aren't sharing data right now.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_02: So there are some tools that can directionally tell you where you're showing up from an LLM perspective, but we're really kind of early days on that.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry, just five C's, consistent, context, credible, clear, complete.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_00: What are they?
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_02: You got a lot of C's in there.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness, there's a lot of C words.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_02: You've got yeah, completeness, correctness, citations, context, and then customer acquisition.
• 50:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so kind of completeness, making sure you have all of the attributes.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_02: So you know this, Christina, but like on Amazon, even if you're selling shampoo, you have to say if there's batteries included.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like all the I always hated filling out that form.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, there's no batteries in my shampoo.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: Like, let's move on.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so completeness, correctness, making sure that uh AI is not hallucinating and pulling correct information, not a review from 2010 that's inaccurate.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, context, I talked a lot about that, but just making sure you're answering all the questions from your consumers.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_02: Customer acquisition is like ties everything together.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the conversion piece.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_02: How are you making sure all of that is driving conversion?
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_02: And then citations.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_02: I was like, I forgot to see.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then citations are really about that's the trust element.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_02: So LLMs look for where are you being cited?
• 51:15
  SPEAKER_02: Is it Hallistical?
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is it Reddit?
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_02: Is it New York Times?
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_02: You know, like that's where your PR and corporate comms team need to be your new best friend, figuring out where you're being talked about so that you can be uh relevant to LLM search.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, perfect.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_03: All right, Lauren, we're gonna pivot a little bit to the show.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Let's do it.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm going to send you, I'm gonna talk through a double barrel question, if you will.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_03: You've spoken about the need for for more female voices influencing the future of AI.
• 51:47
  SPEAKER_03: Agree.
• 51:48
  SPEAKER_03: So, two questions on that is why A, why does it matter now?
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_03: And B, does AI have the potential to level the playing field for women in leadership?
• 52:01
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good question.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_02: I think I'll ask answer the second part first.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think the answer is yes if we harness it.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think the reason we see less women kind of speak up around things like AI is because I think we tend to, and I'm broad brushstroking here, right?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_02: So like I think we tend to want to have everything in place before we kind of make an opinion or say something, and we we don't want to just kind of like throw it out there and not have anything to back it up.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I think this is a world where like just throw out what you think and be like, hey, who do you have questions about it?
• 52:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, can we talk about it?
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: I might be wrong.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: And I do a lot, I do that a lot.
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_02: And and I don't think that's a natural instinct because I just think we want to make sure that we're kind of like buttoned up and we're very clear about what we're saying.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I do think it is an opportunity, and I think that women can even use AI to help build up that confidence to be able to talk about it, right?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_02: Like I use AI as a thought partner sometimes.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, hey, like poke holes in this.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why would you say this is true or false?
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what am I missing?
• 53:01
  SPEAKER_02: So I do think it's a massive opportunity for for women to feel even more confident to kind of get out there, talk about what they're thinking, thinking, share their opinions.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_02: So definitely yes to that.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I cur encourage anyone to go on Claude or ChatGPT and be like, challenge this statement.
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: What do you think?
• 53:19
  SPEAKER_02: And listen, LLMs like to please.
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I've taken everything with a grain of salt, right?
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: Or sand, but uh like just be cautious, but also use it as someone like the something as a thought partner.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then what was the first question, Jackie?
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_02: I almost why does it matter?
• 53:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, why does it matter?
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean female influencers.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh, we could spend the whole podcast on this.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, I think women have such a unique perspective.
• 53:44
  SPEAKER_02: I think we bring a ton of empathy to thinking about problems and challenges, and I think we can break things down and really, really explain things in an easy to understand and real way.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I just think it matters to have diverse opinions talking about this because no one's an expert.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_02: And the more voices, the better, the more insights, the better.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we are all only going to be successful if we figure this out together.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_02: And it's never been more of a time where that's true.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: Even in the world of brands and retailers and tech and partners need to work together to get this right.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_02: We don't live in a world where you can win alone anymore.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think the more voices, the more people we bring to the table, the better we're all gonna be.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_02: We love it.
• 54:31
  SPEAKER_00: Building a better world.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: 100%.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I try to be super intentional, like all of our events, anything I'm doing, like podcasts, webinar, I really try to make sure that there's equal representation on stage and that that women have a voice.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you want to talk about something, you let me know.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: DM me on LinkedIn and we can chat.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Slide into Lauren's DMs, all right?
• 54:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, Lauren, I do want to take a minute to talk about your journey.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've taken that non-traditional path to where you are today.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_00: You started as a dance major, yep.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then your first job was in college admissions.
• 55:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_00: And here we are today.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: You've become one of the industry's leading voices on digital transformation and AI.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: You just led a master class in that for us today.
• 55:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you think your unconventional background has helped you?
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like what did it teach you, maybe?
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh gosh.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, great question.
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's funny.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could like go back and and show myself where I am today, and I'd be like, you're doing what?
• 55:38
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I mean, dance and journalism is what I and and sociology is actually kind of what I ended with.
• 55:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think the themes of my career have really been like building community, working with other people and kind of solving meaty problems.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_02: And for me, it was always really about the people.
• 55:58
  SPEAKER_02: Like college admissions was my first kind of entrance into my career, and I got to meet people all over the world.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_02: I I recruited all over the world, and I learned like how to communicate, how to get your message across, then moving to corporate America and learning more about the business side.
• 56:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I got thrown into the digital shelf.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_02: They were like, hey, do you want this thing called the digital shelf?
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, sure, what's that?
• 56:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I had to kind of learn from scratch.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think kind of each job gave me the opportunity to dig my teeth and teeth into something kind of meaty and strategic and learn it and figure out and kind of go go along with it.
• 56:36
  SPEAKER_02: And this was like a natural fit after working in the e-commerce space because I really want to help people in seat doing the job, like do it better.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_02: When I was on the brand side, it felt very isolating because I was in an e-commerce role before COVID, right?
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_02: So people didn't believe in e-commerce the way that they do now.
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, and I didn't know anybody else who had my job.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so for me, it's been amazing to be able to connect people across brands, across industry, and just like have some therapy and just have a conversation about like what's working and what's not.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been very non-traditional, but I really do think the theme has been like white space meaty kind of topics and then the the people in the community element.
• 57:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you're like one of the Wild West pioneers.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about that, Jackie, but maybe, maybe non-traditional.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_02: But I think it's funny though, because like when you talk to a lot of people in e-commerce, that's how most people started, right?
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_02: Because it wasn't a very clear-cut career path.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: And quite frankly, it's it's not really in most organizations.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I talk to a lot of people today, and they're like, hey, like, where do you suggest I go next?
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: Or like, what do you suggest that I do?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think all of us in e-commerce are kind of the trailblazers, kind of showcasing what a career could look like.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: And for some people, that that's really kind of scary.
• 57:57
  SPEAKER_02: For me, it's been exciting because it's like, hey, like I can kind of determine what this looks like, and there's no set next step.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really exciting to figure out like what the next chapter looks like.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so uh there's just a lot of opportunity in this space as it grows and changes.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's it's phenomenal, Lauren, because you think about it.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: When you were in high school or or primary school, this did not exist.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_03: No, there was no e-commerce, there was no AI, there was none of this.
• 58:27
  SPEAKER_03: It has this is and and and now when you think about it, for the generations coming through, there are jobs out there that have not yet been created for the people coming through the ranks with at high school, at university, which kind of ties back to what you were saying earlier on, which is you know, how do we train these folks for what is coming down from an AI perspective?
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that is a whole other podcast.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it it is something, Jackie, that I am so passionate about and I try to bring up so much because I just I don't know if we're having those conversations and we need to like future talent looks different, recruiting for talent looks different, job descriptions look different, like you need to plan for what that looks like.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what are we crying what are we requiring people to learn?
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, even from an e-commerce perspective, sometimes people will like share roles with me and they're like, hey, I'm looking for this role.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, do you have anyone you know?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I was like, first of all, like you have that you want 15 years of experience for this.
• 59:25
  SPEAKER_02: I'm like, you could be cool with five and you get someone who's amazing, right?
• 59:29
  SPEAKER_02: Like, it's just a different way of thinking, and and it's a structural change.
• 59:33
  SPEAKER_03: Because 15 years ago, this wasn't there.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what are those soft skills that we can fall back on?
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because to your point, like the future org may be that you have five to ten agents reporting to you and not people.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, it's storytelling, it's you know, strategic acumen, it is being more of a generalist to connect the dots to influence, right?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: To understand success and be able to weigh those different options and you know, go no-go decisions, etc.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think that's what we need to focus on teaching right now in this time of ambiguity, because those are life skills that regardless are going to help you, but especially in with the indications we have of where the industry is going, are going to be the skill set that becomes more important moving forward.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_02: And with that though, Christina, you have to think about, and we all have to think about like what do we gain and what do we lose with using AI.
• 1:00:32
  SPEAKER_02: So I was talking to someone the other day, and they're like, oh, I don't use, I don't take notes anymore.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: I just use my AI note taker, but I've realized that I'm not, I'm not like retaining information the way I used to because I'm not writing it down and I'm not processing it myself.
• 1:00:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think we need to be very, very intentional about how we're using AI and understand the effect it has on different elements of our lives.
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because I agree, critical thinking is probably going to be a differentiating skill in the future.
• 1:01:03
  SPEAKER_02: But how are you planning for talent in college and high school?
• 1:01:08
  SPEAKER_02: How are you building those skill sets?
• 1:01:10
  SPEAKER_02: How are you training leaders inside your organization?
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I've seen a lot of talk around like apprenticeships versus internships, because you might not need to do the hands-on keyboard work that might be replaced by AI.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're sitting in a boardroom, you learn how people ask questions, how they think through problems, how they're tackling things.
• 1:01:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like that is something that is hard to teach in a textbook, but would be great if you can listen and learn and kind of sit in the room.
• 1:01:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I really hope we we lean into that because that's an opportunity to really kind of shape a lot of these future leaders.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_03: And this is actually something that Melissa Burdick believes very strongly and is so.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we've talked about this.
• 1:01:52
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, this this again has been a masterclass, but I'd be uh remiss to not talk about one of your favorite memories from our J and J days.
• 1:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the infamous Halloween flash mob that happened in Stillman, New Jersey.
• 1:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: Talk about the importance, I think it ties in nicely because it's you know, you can't place a value on those type of experiences that are cemented in your mind and your heart.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think brands are are slowly getting back to that in an era of Gen AI.
• 1:02:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you create those authentic and meaningful connections with your consumer?
• 1:02:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the differentiator.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: So uh long way of saying, what made the moment so memorable for Freelorn?
• 1:02:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, that was the best.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_02: So the skill in office, just for context, so Christina knows this, Jackie, but uh, there was it was kind of like a circle, and there was like a middle open area, and there were like trees inside the office.
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_02: So, like if you looked down, you could see downstairs where like the coffee and the cafeteria was.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I had an amazing team at the time.
• 1:02:55
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Hamongi, shout out to Hamongi was like, let's do this flash mob.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so we all learned this dance, and we were like, okay, we're gonna do it on Halloween.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like, we all kind of dressed up, and so uh in the middle of lunchtime, we like blasted music, which I'm sure some people didn't like in the like atrium and all started like breaking out in dance, but it was just it was just a lot of fun to be around like the people you work with, and you know, honestly, it was a really good cross-functional like collaboration opportunity because I met people in different functions that I had like never met before, and we were all dancing.
• 1:03:34
  SPEAKER_02: Now, listen, I'm a dancer, so I was like fully in it.
• 1:03:37
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people were like, I do not want to do this, but they did it, and it was just everybody came together, it was a lot of fun.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know where you were, Christina, when it was happening, but like people were like looking over the edges, they were like eating lunch.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was just it was wild.
• 1:03:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was in the best.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_02: It was definitely disruptive, but it was a lot of fun, and uh it was really cool.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_03: Sounds gorgeous.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_03: All right, well, Lauren, we have picked your brains for a long time now, so we're gonna go for a fast file round.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna start with best career advice you've ever received.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you go slow and sometimes you go fast, and that's okay.
• 1:04:16
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, you can take a break and take a pause because it's the time in your life when you need it, and then sometimes you can like full throttle and that's the time, but it's okay to have ebbs and flows.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_02: I will never ever forget that.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_02: Great one.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh AI trend you're skeptical about.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_02: Synthetic data.
• 1:04:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of talk around using AI to like fix your data and either to create data where there's gaps.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 1:04:42
  SPEAKER_02: I'm on the fence about that.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, because I don't know if that solves the root problem of not knowing where the data is and making sure it's accurate.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_02: And so I I'm kind of sitting and watching that space a lot.
• 1:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: Same.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_03: Big question mark for me.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_03: I am going to be really cheeky and steal Christina's question.
• 1:05:03
  SPEAKER_03: What's your go-to hype song?
• 1:05:05
  SPEAKER_02: Unstoppable.
• 1:05:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:05:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_02: That's always my walkout song.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_02: It just makes me feel good and it gets me in a good mood.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yeah.
• 1:05:17
  SPEAKER_00: So and you are.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 1:05:20
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_00: And last one, what's one thing women should stop waiting for permission to do?
• 1:05:27
  SPEAKER_02: Share their opinion.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_02: Put it out there, even if it's half baked.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_02: Like put it on LinkedIn, be like, let's talk about it.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do you think?
• 1:05:33
  SPEAKER_02: Like it doesn't have to be 100%, it doesn't have to be polished.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_02: Just start the conversation.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: Love that.
• 1:05:38
  SPEAKER_00: We agree.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_00: And we appreciate you sharing your opinion and doing this, like I said, masterclass in all things agentic, uh digital transformation, agentic transformation.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh keep doing what you're doing, Lauren.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: You are a thought leader, you are a trailblazer, and you most definitely are unstoppable.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_02: This was a lot of fun.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_02: I really love what you're doing.
• 1:06:02
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for highlighting female voices in the industry.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks so much for having me.
• 1:06:05
  SPEAKER_02: Of course.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, Lauren, with every episode, we ask our guests to take a pledge and to pay it forward, continue to amplify women's voices and build the industry along with us in joining our community of sisterhood.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: So, are you willing and able to take the pledge, Lauren?
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm ready to go.
• 1:06:25
  SPEAKER_03: Let's do it.
• 1:06:26
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 1:06:27
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to our tribe.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_03: And with that, everyone, thank you so much.
• 1:06:32
  SPEAKER_03: All that's left is for me to say bold brands, fierce women, one sisterhood.