At a recent Brand Leaders Dinner hosted by Glossy and Modern Retail, in partnership with Global Payments, founders and C-suite executives from across fashion, beauty and retail gathered to discuss the pressures shaping their businesses, from artificial intelligence and changing hiring plans to the rising cost of building awareness at retail.The discussion was held under Chatham House Rules, allowing attendees to speak candidly without their comments being attributed to them or their companies.
The clearest change between the conversation at a Leaders Dinner in April was in the way executives spoke about AI. Rather than treating it as an experimental marketing tool, several said they are beginning to use it as core business infrastructure.
One brand had built an internal intelligence platform connecting fulfillment, paid media, customer reviews and conversations taking place on platforms including Reddit. The goal was to identify correlations across the business and uncover opportunities to improve performance.
That work is already affecting its hiring plans. “We’re learning what can be automated and what can be streamlined,” one executive said. “We’ve had roles up on our hiring account that we’ve taken down once we figured out that we could do something more efficiently.”
