Latest / Talk Commerce / Inside the Future of Shopping with Jason Grunberg at eTail 2025
Transcript
- Speaker 2 (00:03.916) Alright, welcome to this special e-tail episode of Talk... Oop, we gotta start over because I have to start the camera too, I forgot about that. And pardon the coughing, it's just so dry. Speaker 2 (00:24.13) That's okay. Speaker 2 (00:29.954) All right, now we can start. that. Maybe like that, there we go. All right, here we go, take two. Welcome to this special episode of Talk Commerce Live from E-Tail West in Palm Springs. Today I have Jason Grunberg, he's the chief marketing officer at Bluecore. us your day-to-day role, do an introduction, tell us your day-to-day role and maybe one of your exciting passions in life. All right, well, first, Brent, thanks for having me here. Always exciting to be at ETAL. This is one of my favorite conferences of the year, just because the community is always so vibrant and ready to be learning new things as they get into the new year. So I, as you said, am CMO with Bluecore. I've been with the business for about two years, but have made a career in marketing technology for about the past 15 years. Always have worked with retail and e-commerce organizations even before that time on the agency side. But my job is really to help make sure that we have the right strategy for how the market is evolving. And today, there's so much going on with this agentic future that everybody's talking about. And I'm excited to share a little bit about that as we get into it. But outside of marketing technology and those things, I'm a avid tennis player. It's where I fill my days. And part of the reason that we live in Raleigh, North Carolina, after spending my whole life in the New York City area. We wanted some more sunshine and warmth and are enjoying that. Yeah, and we're in the right place for tennis, right? And there are tournaments going on right now. Speaker 1 (02:02.862) Indian Wells is starting up right after this. Exactly. So are you getting some tennis in while you're... You know, I played some pickleball this morning with some friends from the retail space and nice to get out and do that but we are going to be playing some tennis later on today because there are grass courts here which are few and far between. Hard to come by but exciting. That's awesome, good. Well, we're not going to talk about tennis today, but we are going to talk about agentic, and it's funny because I was just reading a paper last night about the rise of the agentic commerce. So, tell us a little bit about what you have going in the rise of the agents, or whatever we want to call it, but how AI now is transforming people's e-commerce experiences through agentic commerce. Well, I think it first starts with the consumer themselves, right? As we think about our lives and how they are evolving with AI, you look at even Google and how you search today on Google. I know for me personally, if I'm searching for something and I don't get that AI Gemini summary at the top, I'm disappointed. I'm like, my goodness, I actually have to go and click through the right link. Like what's going on? You also look at what's happening on Amazon. Speaker 1 (03:18.604) with Rufus, which is their AI shopping assistant, which is there to help answer questions and predict what questions a consumer might have about a specific product. You then see things like Perplexity, which as a standalone company, the millions of people that are using that now versus where that was a year ago, we as people are kind of being retrained with what we do and how we operate through AI. So I think it's only natural that this conference in this year, for retailers in particular, is all about exploring what exactly does that future look like? How are consumers going to be evolving? And how do we as retailers evolve ourselves in order to make sure that we're able to meet that need and both offer a better experience but capitalize on that opportunity? Yeah, and you think that we talk to different types of agents, but this is giving the e-commerce companies more power to keep people within their store, to help them search and help them find the things that they need. Yeah, so there's a few different kinds of flavors of agents that are out there. And even from yesterday's pre-show AI Summit, what we heard a lot of was you have your AI shopping agent, which is something that Bluecore offers. And we work with brands like Evo and QVC, down to really small brands like Welding Supplies, who are looking to offer this experience to predict the questions that customers are going to ask. so that they can answer them on that path to converting or looking for a different product. You then have your type of customer support agent, which is there to help make sure, post-sale, that this customer can get any questions answered. And typically today you see that in a chat-butt type experience, but that's a part of the process for retail that can be automated with AI, not just automated, but I think vastly improved from the human side of it. Speaker 1 (05:20.17) that we've been typically accustomed to. You then have organizations talking about this idea of agentic marketing and marketing agents. And so this concept is all about the idea of how do you, on an autonomous level, offer the right marketing experience from audience identification and segmentation to copy and campaign creation so you can orchestrate that experience across. You then have the... sales agents and so on and so forth. And I think the big challenge is for retailer understanding where does one agent start, where does and stop, where does the other begin, and also where to start. And that's really why I think so many organizations are here at eTale is to go through that discovery themselves and start understanding how can they quickly be testing into this because I think everybody recognizes that this really is that next wave of innovation. Yeah, do you think that this innovation is going to bring us to better, like I talk about the phone tree and now at some point it was the agent bought phone tree where you get stuck in this loop and at some point that's going to the agents are going to be so good that maybe they'll understand when you need to talk to a real human and it's already there or The other idea is this digital showroom where somebody, real person, is kind of showing you around within it outside of an agent, right, where they maybe hand you off. Yeah, so I again think about it through the lens of the consumer and it's not, I'm trying not to be self-centered but I'll bring it back to like myself and my own experience. There are aspects of shopping that I find completely mundane. That could be shopping for basics that I need every season or I have a six and a half year old daughter, she's growing like a weed and I know that three or four times a year she's gonna need a completely different set of clothes. Speaker 1 (07:14.434) And she can't go back to last year's sweaters, right? Because those just don't fit anymore. So those basics, that's mundane for me. And if I'm thinking about this from my perspective, I would love to live in a world where the purchasing of those things is automated through this agentic world, right? And the brands that I buy from, like Target or Children's Place, for my daughter, no, okay, Jason's daughter is going through this growth spurt. We understand what she's going to need. Let's just serve him with the options that we think are gonna be right ahead of when he needs them. Because the last thing I wanna do is get into a cold day in North Carolina, which are few and far between, but they do happen, and not have the right clothes for her, the right jacket. Now, on the other side, we recently went on vacation. And one of the things that I really enjoy is shopping ahead of vacation. I want to go to the stores. I want to be looking online and seeing what's there, because I wanna have like, you know, the right things for where I'm going to be. And this was an opportunity for me to go shopping with my daughter and go into stores and have an experience around that discovery and seeing the joy when she got to find something that she really wanted. I don't want that automated at all, right? I want that part of that life experience that we have to still exist. But what I'm looking for is how do we automate the mundane? I think the challenge is what's mundane for me might be very different from what's mundane for you or every other individual here. And so when we think about where things are going, this is the next level of personalization, right? Like we've been speaking about personalization for 15 years. Now you can actually offer it in a way that's meaningful for the consumer and for the retailer. But the trick is going to be figuring out How do you do that with gathering the right preferences, making the right predictions around that customer's behavior, and being that resource for them that they can say, OK, I trust you enough to handle these things for me. Speaker 2 (09:17.698) Yeah, and do you think that personalization is going to go to the point where the AI agent is asking you some very mundane questions and you're saying, I have a six year old daughter, I'm trying to buy stuff for them, blah, blah, blah. What's your name? now you're registered and they know that next year you have a seven year old daughter and it's going to keep on going. But then there's going to be this opt in, Hey, we'll help you just opt in and let us ask some more mundane questions that help you as a consumer do better shopping. But even more important as the as the retailer tailor what they would want or even suggest things that they may not know that they So I think that that is likely where things go in the next 24 to 36 months. But I think that is unlikely to be ultimately the right experience. We have to think about this as retailers not being the only part of the equation that are agent enabled. That consumers themselves will have their own agents to automate the aspects of their life that they want automated. And so... When I think about that future, I'm gonna give my agent the orders of what I'm looking for and what I want that agent to do. My agent will interface with agents from individual brands. And so the exciting part of this is like, I might need something tomorrow. And with that, like time is of the essence, but maybe cost is less important to me. And maybe I'm not looking for this exact thing, but something around it. Versus if I know I need something four weeks ahead. I might say I want the perfect match and I want it to be in this price parameter. And so go find that for me. So in that world, I think we have to ask ourselves, what does loyalty look like from a consumer perspective to an individual brand? Also, what import does our website have, our mobile app, our email? And I think that this is likely to be a slow evolution because Speaker 1 (11:17.986) there's only a certain percentage of the consumer base that is going to be ready to jump into that and also have the right buying power to do those things. I think what happens and sometimes as we think about things in this bubble where we're not considering what happens to the unbanked, right? What happens, how does this world exist for people who are purely price sensitive, right? what the aspect of what's mundane to me versus mundane to somebody who's in the bottom 25 % of earners, what does that look like and what does this agentic future look like for them as well? And so there's a lot of complexity with socioeconomic like strategy. Yeah, so you have the difference from the dollar store or Walmart up to the premier brands that are interfacing with their consumers. see a, you mentioned having your own agent to go out and shop for you. Do you see an interface at some point, just like we have API interfaces right now, that there's going to be agent interfaces and every e-commerce platform is going to have to have a welcoming AI interface? Absolutely, right? And this is where the idea of, I think, consumers having some power and knowledge around this is what we're working up to because I would say that today versus 24, 36, 48 months ago, consumers are far more aware of the value of their data for individual brands and they want to have that type of control where they say, you're doing right by me, I'm gonna keep allowing you access to all of this information, but what happens with a misstep, right? What do you lose? As a retailer, if you don't offer the right experience, am I able to revoke that access and have that right to be forgotten at a universal level for that brand? And then what does that do from when I say to my agent, I want you to find these things, I absolutely do not want you engaging with this brand. Speaker 2 (13:23.726) That's really interesting. As well as then how you deploy or you as the consumer, you, going back to trust, do you then not really trust Amazon, Alexis as much as you would trust Google? Because one definitely has an agenda, right? They want you to buy from Amazon. The other one is more of the broader. Well look, think you already see, and Amazon is absolutely always thinking ahead of these things. Amazon just, think two weeks ago, announced that from Amazon itself, if they don't have that product, they're gonna give you, like link you out to somebody who does. Right, so they're already thinking about what this open world looks like and how do they become even more of a displacer of Google's business from a search perspective and owning the customer experience. But I think they're also doing that in response to organizations like Perplexity that are growing the way that they are. And Amazon's certainly understanding that there have to be some bets on what the consumer really wants versus just trying to control what the consumer does. Because I think we're entering really into that era of ultimate control from the consumer perspective. Yeah, do you think it adds a layer from a search perspective? Because I think that people always thought that all the content has to be out there for people to read and then to ultimately buy, right? But now we're really talking about some content needs to be tailored to a bot that goes out and searches for it. And maybe that content is going to be a little bit different. And should that thin content be derived from a bot rather than from a human? Yes Speaker 1 (15:11.502) Well, and that begs the question of like how, when you look at these companies, right, that have their organizational design that is structured where information is available for one department but different for another department. Well, when you think about this future, all of that documentation has to either be available or not available. Right? And so centralizing information inside of an enterprise or an SMB becomes even more critical. And so I think what you already hear is so many people talking about, you've got to get your data into the right place. That's such a vague statement. What does that exactly mean? Is it your customer data? Is it your product data? How about like if you are a retailer, like your warranty information that is from every single one of your wholesalers? Where does that live? And so it creates this now need around enterprise data and content management that I don't think organizations are thinking through in the way that they're going to need to in order to really thrive in this new world. Jason, we have a few minutes left. Tell us a little bit about Bluecore. Give us your plug and tell us, I know you have a presentation coming up. So exciting news, we're going to be on stage with QVC, is a large enterprise customer of ours, and they're going to be taking us through the story of how they've used our AI shopping assistant over the last like 12 months and what the results have been from that. And what's interesting is while many organizations might be familiar with Bluecore for our CDP and campaign management capabilities, Speaker 1 (16:52.702) We're already at the forefront of this agentic experience that we're offering to retailers and customers. So QVC, Evo, as large companies and mid-market down to smaller companies like welding supplies.com that are working with us to launch their first AI shopping assistant. So I would say my big plug is we're doing free trials and proofs of concepts for organizations through June of this year. We want everybody to be able to get the experience of working inside of the control panel that would help configure an AI shopping assistant, even if it's just to learn. So that's what we're here really talking about, sharing the news on, excited about QVC getting up there today with us, sharing their story as well. That's awesome. so tell us how they get a hold of you. You can get I can be available at Jason.Grunberg at Bluecore.com or you can find me on LinkedIn if you're interested but always happy to chat about this put anybody in touch with other customers whether they are a small business all the way up to a global enterprise. That's perfect and I'll make sure I get all those on the show notes. Jason Grunberg, it's been such a pleasure talking to you today. Speaker 1 (18:03.054) Thank you so much. I appreciate it.