New York Tech Week Recap: The Good, The Bad, and...AI

New York Tech Week wrapped June 7th and what a week it was. My highlights included attending Equal Ventures' Commerce Summit and participating in a panel discussion on investing in retail tech at the Fashionology and 'All Things Fashion Tech' Fashion Tech Summit. Across 30+ events focused on the future of commerce, the creator economy and the impact of AI on commerce -  here are my main take-aways.

• AI is (going to be) HUGE. Everyone is talking about and using AI. However AI still has not been adopted and implemented at scale across retailers and brands and when it comes to agentic - we are still in the very early innings. Brands and retailers spoke to their testing efforts with AI, reporting that, for the most part, AI still requires human-oversight and 'hand-holding' - with one panelist reflecting that "AI is only as good as the human behind it". Despite this, across nearly every speaker and conversation I had, people agreed: AI will be huge.

• AI Hurdles: the primary hurdles to implementing AI at scale across the enterprise was two-fold: first it required understanding an enterprises current workflows and brainstorming where AI could be useful. Typical enterprises do not have all of their workflows mapped out to a T - so this process could prove long. Second, the costs to implement AI can be large for retailers and brands - from having to overhaul homegrown systems to rethinking dated SaaS platforms. Additionally, implementing AI and making it valuable requires that enterprises' data is structured appropriately and collecting, cleaning and appropriately structuring data remains a barrier for AI use at-scale.

• What AI cannot replace: there were three areas virtually everyone I chatted with agreed upon that AI could not replace (at least not at this time): experience, emotional resonance, and taste. Brands and creators should focus on these three things, to cut above the noise and truly connect with customers and potential customers.

•  Brands and creators as the new cultural tastemakers: In retail days of yore, fashion fell into 4 seasons and people shopped in stores and from catalogues leaving 'trends' or what is popular in the hands of the major retailers. Today, trends do not fall in seasons and consumers can be influenced by anyone, any brand, or any thing- across an ever-increasing number of touch points. Consumers can make purchases directly on social platforms and increasingly that is also the top channel for inspiration. This has democratized "trends" leaving individuals, creators, and brands with greater influence over the shopper path-to-purchase. At the same time, brands' roles in consumers' lives are expanding (beyond the transaction). Brands are increasingly being seen as purveyors of culture and as a way to demonstrate one's values and identity. This has raised the importance of brands participating in the cultural conversation, as well as, creating it.

•  Everyone has a story to tell. The new buzzword of the week seemed to be "storytelling". At a panel on entertainment, the panelist defined entertainment as storytelling. At countless events focused on marketing in the age of AI - people pointed to the importance of brands having a clear and consistent narrative that tells their story. I hypothesize that stories, as primarily creative endeavors, so perhaps "story-telling" rise in popularity was fueled by the AI race and the constraints of the technology. Lastly, the narrator of the story is also important: as one panelist commented, "your story is more powerful when told by someone else". For brands, this translates to that the narrative their customers and 'fans' create is often more impactful then the narrative that the brand puts forward, because shoppers trust their peers and other shoppers the most.

The shift that AI has created is real and felt, yet the opportunity has not yet been fully captured. People see the opportunity - but have not yet figured out how to fully take hold of it. Once more, we are dealing with other shifts outside of AI that make this time in commerce history a special one: the first digitally-native generation coming of age, almost ubiquitous smart phone penetration (or mobile phone devices with broadband wi-fi), and the lasting effects of the COVID pandemic. The culmination of these factors has upended the way we discover, get inspired, shop, transact and interact with brands.

My thesis is that these tailwinds will further drive commerce to become more and more integrated into consumers' lives that it will be almost invisible to them. As Dan Norman said, good design is not seen, it's felt. As commerce continues to meet consumers where they are, increasingly frictionless and convenient - it will become like good design - imperceptible - enter: Ambient Commerce.

P.S.

Apologies for my massively delayed recap of New York Tech Week (I was too busy scheduling follow-up conversations with the amazing humans I met across the week!). More on Ambient Commerce to come soon. Stay tuned!