Commerce Riff with Sri & PVSB - August 4, 2026

PVSB (00:00)

It's August 4th 2026 and this is the Commerce Riff brought to you by the CPG guys. Ten minutes of the news stories that matter in commerce this week. I'm your co-host, PVSB and as always I'm joined by Papa Raj, father of pop stars, co-founder of Think Blue Consulting Sri, How'd you think Cornell went?

 

Sri (00:16)

We had a full class brands, retailers, service providers that are making change in the industry, know, create partners in cable, that we did a AI session on building a live agent, back view digital, course, in full form, Walmart connect, DoorDash, Instacart, Shipt. I mean, these are who's who at the industry and while I can't reveal our NPS scores publicly, we did very well. Your thoughts?

 

PVSB (00:40)

I absolutely agree, Sri. I'm not gonna call the number out, but I will say we fell into the excellent best in class range. So we were very happy to know that our participants learned a lot, enjoyed their time, and it really seemed they built some great friendships.

 

Sri (00:56)

And then Peter, think LinkedIn is testimonial to public acknowledgement of how the course went.

 

PVSB (01:01)

Yeah, I think if you see all the posts from the people who attended it shows, they were greatly appreciative. All right, thanks, Sri. Two behemoths, one retail, one CPG report earnings. OpenAI is steamrolling ahead. And the NFL, well, it begins a new whiskey partnership. Procter & Gamble last Wednesday reported mixed quarterly results, and underwhelming demand for its products resulted in a weaker than expected sales. Shares of the company fell roughly 3% in morning trading.

 

Here's what Procter & Gamble reported compared to what Wall Street was expecting based on a survey of analysts. Earnings per share was a dollar three adjusted versus $1.41 expected. Revenue was $21.2 billion versus $21.38 expected. P&G reported fiscal fourth quarter net income attributable to the company of $3.04 billion or $1.26 per share, down from $3.62 billion.

 

Or $1.48 per share a year earlier. Excluding restructuring costs, transaction gains, and other items, the company earned $1.43 per share. Net sales rose 2% to $21.2 billion. The company's organic revenue, which excludes acquisitions, divestures, and currency fluctuations, was unchanged for the quarter thanks to flat volume across P&G's portfolio.

 

During P&G's first full fiscal 2026, the company had reported volume growth in just one quarter. Like many consumer companies had seen demand for its products weaken as shoppers have grown more value conscious, opting for value packs or stretching their products' lifespan longer. Quote For the fourth quarter, we saw improving global share trends versus prior period, but headline results were impacted by trade dynamics in the US and the spike in input costs, CFO Andre Schulten said in the

 

Companies Earnings Conference colleague later said that P&G plans to return to growing its sales through a mix of both price and higher volume. In a broader sense, we've had in the post-COVID period 100% of growth driven by price. Schulten said we will return to a more balanced model. Looking ahead to the next fiscal year, the company is not projecting a significant upswing in demand for its products. For fiscal 2027, P&G expects.

 

Core earnings per share in a range of $6.89 to $7.11. The company is also protecting all-end sales growth in the range of 1% to 3% compared to the prior year. The low end of the range protects for additional softness in underlying market growth rates, Schulten said. The high end would require acceleration in underlying market growth rates and market share.

 

Quote, Wall Street was anticipating earnings per share of $7.04 and revenue growth of 2.7 for fiscal 2027, unquote. P&G is currently estimating a billion dollar headwinds after taxes from higher costs for raw materials, energy, and transportation, combined with its projections for a higher net interest expense, lower non-operating income, and unfavorable exchange rates. P&G anticipates an 8% or 56 cent.

 

Shailesh Jejurikar will become chair of the board effective August 1st, in addition to his current role. He succeeds former CEO John Moeller. Shree over to Seattle.

 

Sri (04:35)

Behemoth indeed from one CPG behemoth I'll go to a retail behemoth. Amazon's second quarter online store net sales grew 15 % year over year to about $70.4 billion. The company's physical store net sales grew more modestly at 4 % to reach nearly $5.8 billion according to a last Thursday release of their earnings call. Amazon Web Services continues to shine with net sales jumping 37 % over $42 billion. The e-commerce shines over all net income which is inclusive of AWS.

 

Increase by a staggering 245 % to $62.6 billion dollars. The stock is up, up,

 

Another year over year change in Amazon's Q2 release is what it didn't say about the recent Prime Day event, which is a little bit of a surprise for Peter and me. That ran from June 23rd to June 26th. In 2025, the company described the Prime Day sale, which occurred from July to July 11th during its Q3 timeframe as its biggest Prime Day event ever, which customers saving billions of dollars, independent sellers achieving record sales, put its announcement at that time. Interesting that this year there's no mention. The company just issued a

 

post-prime day press release one day after the event finished in July of 25 detailing some of the best-selling products and touting record sales but nothing of that sort this year it did not pull out a similar post-prime day press release after the event concluded last month in no mention of how sales fared in its Q2 earnings press releases have said Amazon did not answer retail live who questioned them about how sales performed in this latest prime day or provide context as to the change in its public communications about the event's outcome

 

company instead redirected people to a comment CEO Andy Jassy made during an earnings call with analysts on Thursday. Quote, we're pleased with the same customer response to Prime Day where customer shopped millions of deals, including more than 80 % at our lowest price of the year and hundreds of thousands discounted by 40 % or more. Jassy told analysts, AW continues to be the star of the show as anticipated as growth accelerated due to rising demand for AI microchips tech services. Telsey advisory group analysts led by Joe Feldman said in a note shared

 

retail dive on Friday. Quote, Amazon should continue to gain market share by leveraging its sticky prime member base, small business relationships, and tech edge. The Telsey advisory analyst said Amazon's ability to fuel key growth ops, grocery, pharmacy, logistics, ads, and AI tech infrastructure should make it more valuable. Amazon is capitalizing on and investing in its rapid build out of AI for long-term revenue and profit. I'm looking at the stock market. Amazon is up, up, up.

 

Over to you Peter, who I think is an interesting story with the NFL.

 

PVSB (07:18)

Yeah, Sri. Jameson Irish Whiskey on Thursday announced a multi-year partnership that makes the Pernot Ricard Whiskey brand the official spirit sponsor of the NFL. According to a press release, the deal unites the world's top Irish whiskey per drinks, international data cited by the brand, with the most watched sports in the U.S. Jameson replaces Diageo as the NFL's official spirit sponsor. The marketer Smirnov Vodka, Crown Royal.

 

Canadian Whiskey and Captain Morgan Spice Rum were the league's first such partner, but did not renew its five-year deal. Football is a sport driven by passion, ritual, and unforgettable communication connections, values that lie at the very heart of Jameson, Colin Kavanaugh, CMO of Pernot Ricard North America, said in a statement. Whether you're raising a glass at a hometown tailgate, watching a local neighborhood bar, or tuning in from across the globe, Jameson is proud to elevate the fan experience and

 

Toast to every major moment of the season. Partnership will be featured across broadcast, digital, and social channels with custom media integrations and football from the NFL Films. Jameson will have exclusive marketing rights and designations across the NFL's top events, including the Super Bowl Tailgate concert, where it will be a presenting sponsor. The brand will also launch custom on-site fan activations and branded bar spaces at the Super Bowl Fan Festival.

 

The NFL draft and other key league moments like the NFL combined. Jamison will also have global league rights, excluding Brazil and Mexico, as the league continues to expand to new markets. Next season, NFL teams will play nine games spanning four continents, seven countries, and eight stadiums. Jameson will sponsor four NFL international games per year and roll out on-site activations in stadium ads and hospitality engagement.

 

Jameson is a world-class brand known for bringing people together, making them the perfect partner to enrich our fan engagement from excitement and energy of the Super Bowl to the global reach of our international games. This partnership will help connect fans and create new experiences all around the world, Renie Anderson, Executive Vice President, Chief Revenue Officer of the NFL, said in a statement. Sri, close this out, would you?

 

Sri (09:37)

So Peter, OpenAI now has one billion users. One billion, that's one eighth of the planet. OpenAI's models now reach more than a billion active users and more than two million businesses. OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sara Friar said in a Friday, July 31st blog post of her own.

 

OpenAI has found that these users deploy artificial intelligence more often, more deeply as they gain confidence in it. Amongst individuals, after six months of using the technology, people send 50 % more messages each day and use chat GPT for twice as much types of work every day. Amongst businesses, companies often start using AI with one team of workflow and then expand adoption across operations pretty fast, Friar says. And he still says we're fairly still early, quote unquote.

 

More capable systems will complete longer projects, coordinate across tools, and handle more of the work between an idea and a finished result. Individuals and small businesses will gain capabilities once available only to much larger organizations. Enterprises will apply intelligence more broadly across their apps.

 

The payments intelligence report says quote unquote, the AI on-ramp data shows how everyday task-built consumer habits, close quote, found that the way the use of generative AI will become a mass habit is to small, repeatable tasks people do every day. And I think Peter, you and I are already doing that now. Some of the most common truly universal uses of AI are finding product links, drafting tax emails, symptom lookup, according to the report. Another intelligence report from payments also says it's labeled financial services

 

in the enterprise AI race found that while all enterprise sectors jumped into AI, financial services and insurance, which usually at a thought would be slow, those firms are those with the highest adoption. The industry's most adapted use cases include structured, auditable back office functions per the report. Friars Block Post came a day after the OpenAI announced that it made changes to the price or the performance of three of its AI models to improve their performance per dollar across enterprise workloads.

 

Open AI cut the price of GPT 5.6, Luna by 80 % cut the price of GPT 5.6, Tera by 20 % and provided faster performance of GPT 5.6, Sol in the API, those are the three I referred to while leaving its overall API price unchanged. Friar said in a blog post, these are not simply changes to a price list, they expand the range of work that becomes practical and give customers more flexibility. to balance intelligence, speed, reliability, and cost. Closes our period.

 

PVSB (12:10)

That's a wrap on this week's Commerce Riff. A quick reminder, catch up on our recent episodes. We've had two great conversations recorded in Cannes, France, that you don't want to miss. We spoke with Senior Vice President of Walmart Connect International and Sands Club Connect, Rich Lehrfeld and in a separate conversation, Sean McGahee from Roundell with Sarah Marzano from eMarketer. Links are in the show notes of this episode. If anything we covered today sparks a thought, drop it in the comments. We read everyone, and if you're not following us on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube yet, well now's the time. See you next week.