We pick up where we left off a year ago and get into what has changed since. Ekta walks us through how e.l.f. is structuring its AI work, what kind of person they’re hiring to do it, and how a public company makes the case for investing before the ROI is fully provable. The live audience jumps in with some sharp questions along the way.

We close by looking ahead to what Ekta thinks brands need to get ready for in the next 12 months. Hit play.

Highlights:

• 𝗟𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝘁 𝗿𝗶𝗽 𝗼𝗿 𝗹𝗼𝗰𝗸 𝗶𝘁 𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗻: Ekta says companies tend to pick one of two AI philosophies, giving it to everyone or locking it down. e.l.f. has tried to do both so it doesn't kill innovation.
• 𝗧𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝗱𝘀: e.l.f. runs three AI pods covering agentic commerce/growth, intelligent operations, and the human-agent workforce. Each pod owns data, change management, integrations, and training. The agentic growth roles are now being hired as dedicated full-time positions across e.l.f.'s brands.
• 𝗡𝗼 𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗺𝗲𝗮𝘀𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗳𝗶𝗴𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗼𝘂𝘁: "Anybody that tells you they have figured it out haven't figured it out." Ekta measures readiness instead, and focuses on the products where e.l.f. has the right to win.
• 𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗺𝗽𝘁𝘀, 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆: Jason points out that most visibility tools rely on synthetic prompts. Google's new Agentic Insights tab in Merchant Center is the first look at what real people actually type, at least on Google surfaces.
• 𝗕𝗮𝗱 𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗮 = 𝗯𝗮𝗱 𝗔𝗜: Ekta's case for fixing the foundation first. If you don't solve the plumbing, you can't scale.
• 𝗘𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘃𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝗲: About 14 months ago e.l.f. brought in an outside search expert, and that put "fire in the belly."
• 𝗦𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽𝗲𝗿: e.l.f. has invested in Lyric for forecasting and demand planning. Its planners "are actually now engineers," and AP, AR, payroll and inventory teams are building their own AI workflows.
• 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁: Ekta's prediction is that Meta wins the agent shopping race. She says brands need to put agent identity in place now, so they know which agent is arriving and which customer it represents. It's the next CDP/CRM-style plumbing project.

Huge thanks to Ekta for running over from the main stage, and to our live audience at RetailClub for the great questions. Enjoy the conversation.

Timestamps:
01:17 Live from Retail Club: meet Ekta Chopra & co-host Jason Goldberg
02:04 One-year reunion and a new title
02:38 e.l.f. Beauty: a house of brands, 30 straight growth quarters
03:19 Eyes, lips, face… and the Jeopardy! moment
03:43 Ekta's role as Chief Technology & AI Officer
04:02 From the main stage: let it rip or lock it down
05:04 e.l.f.'s three AI pods
06:14 Making agentic growth a full-time job
07:00 Who do you hire for agentic commerce?
08:33 Jason's "you've reached your quota" hiring hack
08:48 Selling AI investment to a public company board
10:06 Measuring readiness when no one has measurement figured out
11:31 "My board member couldn't find our product"
13:06 Synthetic prompts vs. real prompts: Google's Agentic Insights
14:00 Audience Q: build vs. buy
14:52 Where to start: external voices and fire in the belly
16:23 Foundation first: bad data equals bad AI
17:47 Back office, supply chain, and Lyric
19:52 Personal shopping assistants and agents
20:59 Serving a house of brands and working with retail partners
22:55 Audience Q: is governance keeping pace?
24:50 Next 12 months: Meta, agent identity & agent relationship management
26:20 Wrap-up

👉 Connect with Ekta: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ektachopra/
👉 Learn more about e.l.f. Beauty: https://www.linkedin.com/company/e-l-f-beauty/

🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
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This week is a research deep dive. ReFiBuy commissioned a behavioral study of how real people shop inside ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode, and Scot sat down with the researcher who ran it to walk through what was found. The full study is published today This is the conversation behind the numbers.

Highlights:

• 𝟴𝟰% 𝗼𝗳 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗿𝘁 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱: About 84% of product choices in the study came from a product card. That's 83.7%, and Scot rounds it up "if you allow."
• 𝗣𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝘄𝗼: The first card wins by a wide margin, with roughly 43% of picks. But card three outperformed card two in both ChatGPT and AI Mode. Eric's take is that "it's not really a ranking." Scot's guess is curiosity, because card three is only partly visible in the carousel.
• 𝗣𝗶𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝘀: About 75% of shoppers skipped the AI's written answer and went straight to the product cards. They'd come back to the text later, but only as a second step.
• 𝟵𝟴% 𝗼𝗳 𝗾𝘂𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗴𝗴𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱𝘀: Purchase-intent prompts like "I want to buy X today" brought up product cards almost every time.
• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗲𝗿 𝘄𝗶𝗻𝘀: When shoppers had to click out to a retailer, they leaned even harder toward the first offer than toward the first product card. The likeliest path is first card, first offer.
• 𝗔𝗱𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹𝗹𝘆 𝗹𝗶𝗸𝗲: About 6 in 10 free-plan users saw ads or sponsored content on a task. 71% rated them at least as useful as Google search ads, and about 35% said an ad influenced what they considered buying.
• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘅: Reviews were the main reason for a pick only 2% of the time. Afterward, about 75% said reviews mattered. Scot's explanation is that nobody reads them, but everyone takes the 4.8 over the 3.2.
• 𝗧𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁, 𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗹 𝗶𝘁 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗸𝘀: Eric says the biggest surprise after two years of these studies is "the extent to which people trust, even when they say they don't." A mismatched price or a wrong spec breaks that trust quickly.
• 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗸𝗲𝘆𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗱 𝗷𝗮𝗶𝗹 𝗲𝗿𝗮: Scot compares 20 years of chasing "men's running shoe" on Google with a world where shoppers let the AI choose for them.
• 𝟰𝟬 𝗽𝗲𝗼𝗽𝗹𝗲, 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗵𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸: The study had 40 remote participants doing 30-minute think-aloud sessions on screen recordings. The team logged small behaviors down to seconds spent and scroll percentages.

Scot came out of the Amazon era believing the buy box was everything, and this study tells him ChatGPT has one too. Enjoy the conversation.

Timestamps:
01:57 Meet Eric Van Buskirk, Clickstream Solutions
02:15 Why ReFiBuy commissioned this study
02:48 Eric's background: SEMrush, Backlinko, Kevin Indig
04:05 Stated preference vs. observed behavior
06:05 How a behavioral study works
08:30 Why 40 people is enough
10:20 Who took part, and who got cut
11:55 The Amazon buy box and agentic commerce optimization
14:25 Finding #1: Pictures beat paragraphs
16:40 Card position: #1 wins, #3 beats #2
18:55 84% of choices come from a product card
20:35 Google SEO vs. AI: the "keyword jail" era
23:40 When do shoppers click out?
25:30 75% skip the text and go straight to the cards
27:25 Offer cards: the first offer dominates
30:20 Ads in ChatGPT: what shoppers really think
35:50 Trust and the reviews paradox
40:25 When bad data breaks trust
41:35 Where to get the study and work with Eric
44:55 Wrap-up

👉 Connect with Eric: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanbuskirk/
👉 Learn more about Clickstream Solutions: https://clickstream.cc/

🧠 Want to stay ahead in AI commerce? Subscribe and follow along:
📰 Subscribe to the free Substack: retailgentic.ai
📺 Watch episodes on YouTube & Subscribe for updates: https://www.youtube.com/@Retailgentic