Amber Turley

"The Taste Economy"—and why it matters far beyond retail. My latest piece just published in Retail Merchandiser explores what I'm calling "The Taste Economy"—and why it matters far beyond retail. The fear around AI agents has been that they'll strip away the emotional, identity-driven aspects of commerce and replace them with cold optimization. But that fear is misplaced. What's actually emerging is something I call "Algorithmic Intimacy"—the ability to deliver personal relevance at scale. AI agents that don't just track purchases, but learn to read aspirations from behavioral cues. That understand the gift someone hesitated over last Christmas and recognize when the moment is finally right. Instead of endless scrolling through 500 nearly identical options, these agents surface three items that match aesthetic, climate needs, values, and style before consumers even articulate the criteria. We're already seeing it with Boots' AI-powered beauty diagnostics and Target bringing shopping into ChatGPT. But here's what retail leaders need to understand going into 2026: as AI handles more of the transaction, real competitive advantage shifts to taste, curation, and understanding what customers truly care about. The retailers focused only on driving purchases will lose to those who focus on aligning with customer identity. The same principle applies across every industry. As AI takes on more mechanical work, human judgment becomes more valuable, not less. The winners will be those who embrace what I've been calling the Master Orchestrator mindset—using AI to amplify human insight, not replace it. Full article in Retail Merchandiser. Would welcome your thoughts, especially from those seeing similar patterns in your sectors. Full article here https://lnkd.in/g6YTMUmm #AI #RetailInnovation #CustomerExperience #AIAgents #DigitalTransformation #TasteEconomy #AlgorithmicIntimacy #FutureOfRetail #EnterpriseAI

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Just wrapped an incredible session with Google’s Retail Advisory Council, where CMOs from some of the world’s leading retailers - Target, Kohl’s, Sephora, Fanatics, and more - came together to discuss what’s next in retail. A few themes stood out loud and clear: - Quality > Quantity: Product feeds aren’t just plumbing—they’re brand. Images, descriptions, and video are now the front line of differentiation. - AI is the new workforce: We have a 24/7 team that never sleeps. The question isn’t if we’ll use AI agents across every function, but how fast we can build and scale them. - YouTube is the new prime time: Incremental TV reach still matters, but the next generation of brand building is happening on YouTube. - Personalization is non-negotiable: The industry is moving toward single-page, demand-led, fully personalized commerce experiences. My biggest takeaway? The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed. Those who lean into AI, brand, and creative excellence today will set the pace for tomorrow. Curious: how are you bringing AI agents into your marketing org? And which part of your funnel do you think will be disrupted first?

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Elena Bonvicini went from selling reconstructed vintage jeans on her high school locker room floor to Bergdorf Goodman in about five years. EB Denim’s trajectory is a case study in how modern fashion brands scale without following the traditional playbook. She started with a supply arbitrage insight: vintage men's Levis’Store 501s were abundant and cheap, women's vintage denim was scarce and expensive. She bought men's jeans, reconstructed them into women's fits, and sold them to classmates. But upcycling has a ceiling. Vintage supply is inherently limited. You can’t manufacture vintage at scale. So at the point where most upcycled brands plateau, Elena made the move that separated EB Denim from the rest: she launched a contemporary line using new sustainable fabric while keeping the vintage reconstruction line as her brand anchor. Smart sequencing: Use the scarcity and one-of-a-kind nature of vintage to build brand heat and celebrity placement (Hailey Bieber, Bella Hadid wearing truly unique pieces). Then leverage that brand equity to launch scalable product lines that can actually fill retail purchase orders. The brand's now carried at Bergdorf, Selfridges, REVOLVE, and Holt Renfrew. All manufactured in LA, which typically kills margin but becomes a brand asset when your customer cares about supply chain provenance. What’s impressive to me is the capital efficiency. Elena bootstrapped this from thrift-store inventory to global distribution without burning VC money. The vintage line generated early cash flow while she figured out manufacturing. The organic celebrity placement created demand before she had retail infrastructure. For brands in the $10M–$20M range trying to solve the retail expansion puzzle: EB Denim’s path shows the answer isn’t always “raise capital and build inventory.” Sometimes it’s “build disproportionate brand equity with limited inventory first, then use that leverage to negotiate retail terms that actually work.”

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