PUBLISHED DATE: 2025-08-11 23:27:24

VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

SPEAKER:

Can you share how you think about it and how your team is approaching generative AI?

SPEAKER:

Sure, yeah. And the first thing to say is we've been working in the AI and predictive space, in the machine learning space for about four years now. So we started it with the pulling customer data together, thinking about how we're going to drive digital experience, driving media through customer segmentation. So that's all machine learning driven engine. Our segmentation is self-learning and it develops all the time. So we've been in that journey. And then generative AI, the first thing to say is we're in a very good space because we're in a way a very simple business. We buy silver, we make it turn into jewellery, we sell it to amazing customers around the world. And 86% of sales happen in channels we either own or control. So from a data point of view, we have lights on and we're a very tight data set because we have about 1,900 products. So we're not a department store with 400,000 skus. So from a data point of view, we're in quite a good space. Second, we're in a good space because we're partnered with the right people, whether it's folks at Sapient or whether it's Microsoft or Salesforce or Bloomreach. We've got a great set of partnerships, which means that we're benefiting from what our partners are doing every day. And we've put ourselves in the right place to be part of the trials and betas and so on. So that's a big part of what we're doing. And then lastly, we're taking our time in terms of, okay, how do we exploit this in the business? But the way I want to tackle that, the way we are tackling that is I want to enable people to use Gen AI. So I don't want the tech team to be the blocker, oh, you've got to come through us. So the first piece is off reservation, design team playing around with Midjourney or whatever, we're aware of it. It comes to us in terms of like, this is what we're playing around with. So we're aware of it from a safety point of view, but they're enabled and empowered to get on with it. On reservation, core data, customer data, sales data, anything that plays around with the engine, the machine, that comes through our data science team primarily based out of London now. And so that's an important split because we don't want to be the kind of data and tech function goes, whoa, whoa, hang on a minute, we do Gen AI. That'd be really boring. So we want to empower and enable all of our colleagues to think about what it could do for them. Because also we don't think we've got the best ideas. They've got the best ideas. So that empowerment and enablement is a really important part, but with a key focus around safety, guide rails and framework at the centre.