Leaders from LoveShackFancy, COS, and Authentic Brands Group discuss how AI is changing ecommerce marketing and why strong customer relationships still matter most.
As AI reshapes the customer journey, brands are reevaluating everything from personalization and operational workflows to loyalty and customer acquisition. At Thread New York, leaders across retail and ecommerce explored what it will take to maintain direct customer relationships in an increasingly AI-driven world.
Inside the Domino Sugar Refinery in Brooklyn, the discussion around AI felt noticeably more practical than performative. No one on stage was debating whether AI had staying power. That part felt settled.
Instead, the panel focused on a more immediate challenge many brands are actively navigating: how to embrace AI without losing the customer understanding and brand identity that made people connect with their business in the first place?
Across the panel, speakers returned to the same tension repeatedly. AI is making marketing faster and more personalized, while also raising the stakes for brands to get the fundamentals right. Customer trust, strong data foundations, and direct relationships still remain the things that matter most.
AI is changing workflows, not replacing brand strategy
For many brands, the first wave of AI adoption is showing up operationally.
Lauren Price, SVP of Marketing & Communications at COS, pointed to Attentive AI Journeys as one of the first concrete operational shifts her team implemented, particularly around automating personalization and send strategy at scale.
Being able to personalize and automate the copy and the message send strategy gave us the ability to unlock a level of top-line growth that we just wouldn’t have had access to.
- Lauren Price, COS
Stacey Warshaw, Head of eCommerce & Digital Marketing at LoveShackFancy, shared that one of the biggest shifts her team has experienced is increased efficiency across everyday workflows. Product copywriting, which once required significant manual effort, can now be automated far more easily. That shift has created space for the team to focus on storytelling, creative direction, and broader brand development.
But her overarching point had less to do with automation itself and more to do with what needs to exist underneath it.
If you miss the foundation, you’re not going to future-proof your strategy.
- Stacey Warshaw, LoveShackFancy
That idea became one of the clearest throughlines of the conversation. As brands rush to implement AI across marketing functions, many are discovering that automation amplifies whatever systems already exist underneath the surface.
To make AI effective at scale, brands need:
- Strong customer data
- Connected platforms and systems
- Clear brand positioning
- Cohesive messaging across channels
Without that foundation, personalization breaks down. Messaging feels generic. Customer experiences become fragmented instead of relevant.
The discussion consistently came back to the same reality. AI works best when it strengthens a strategy that already exists. It does not replace the need for one.
Brands are doubling down on direct relationships
Much of the current AI conversation focuses on emerging discovery behaviors. Marketers are closely watching how LLMs, AI assistants, and algorithmic recommendations may reshape the path to purchase over the coming years. Yet many of the leaders at Thread appeared less invested in chasing every new platform than they were in strengthening the customer relationships they already own.
Warshaw explained that LoveShackFancy remains heavily focused on DTC growth and brand storytelling despite the growing industry conversation around AI-driven discovery. Meaningful traffic from LLMs still remains limited for many brands today, making direct customer engagement significantly more valuable in the near term. That perspective connected naturally with several other conversations happening on stage.
Tim Derner, Global Head of Marketplaces at Authentic Brands Group, emphasized investments in international commerce, content-driven shopping experiences, and UGC across markets. While each brand approached growth differently, the underlying priority sounded remarkably similar: understanding customer behavior well enough to create experiences that actually feel relevant.
One example Price shared stood out in particular. During full-price periods, one of the strongest signals her team watches is whether customers are adding products to cart before promotions even begin. That behavior often reveals far more about true brand demand and customer intent than surface-level traffic metrics. As AI becomes more integrated into discovery and decision-making, customer understanding becomes increasingly important. Brands that know how to build trust, recognize intent, and maintain relevance across channels will be in a much stronger position than brands relying solely on automation to drive growth.
AI adoption is creating cultural challenges alongside operational ones
The conversation eventually shifted away from customer acquisition and toward the realities teams are facing internally as AI adoption accelerates.
One recurring challenge was the growing saturation of AI vendors entering the market. Warshaw spoke candidly about how difficult it has become to evaluate which tools are truly differentiated versus simply repackaged versions of existing technology. Proving real incrementality remains one of the biggest hurdles for marketing teams navigating new partnerships.
Derner raised a related issue around fragmentation. Across many organizations, teams are experimenting with entirely different AI tools and workflows, creating inefficiencies in spend, decision-making, and operational alignment. At one point, the conversation distilled down to a simple observation.
If you put in bad inputs, you’ll get bad outputs.
- Tim Derner, Authentic Brands Group
The statement captured something larger than data quality alone. AI reflects the maturity of the organization using it. Strong governance, aligned systems, and clear operational structures matter more as automation becomes embedded into everyday marketing workflows.
That operational shift is also creating cultural changes inside organizations. Price discussed the value of company-wide training and empowering early adopters to help guide AI education internally. Derner added that his team has experimented with gamifying AI adoption through collaborative challenges and incentives, while Warshaw emphasized the importance of democratizing access and establishing clear guardrails around approved usage.
The brands that win will balance AI with customer trust
By the end of the panel, the conversation felt far less focused on AI itself and far more focused on the people responsible for implementing it thoughtfully.
The technology will continue evolving quickly. Customer expectations will evolve alongside it. The brands positioned for long-term success will likely be the ones that continue investing in customer trust, relevance, and direct relationships while adapting thoughtfully to the tools shaping the future of commerce.
To learn more about how brands are approaching AI-powered customer engagement, personalization, and messaging strategies, explore Attentive’s AI solutions.
