Sarp Tuncay - Moving from Operators to Orchestrators of AI in Retail Media

Sarp (00:00)

Hi, I am Sarp Tuncay, a retail media and e-commerce strategy leader in the industry, and you are watching this CPG Guys podcast.

Papa Raj (00:10)

Hello and welcome again to the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm of course Sri, your West Coast co-host, CRO and co-founder of ThinkBlue Consulting, your trusted partner in your Omnichannel journey, where you can get in touch with at sri@thinkblueconsulting.co. Please to listen to my younger daughter, Lara Raj of the band Katseye, who are a week away now from a full tour in the fall of Europe and US. This time it's arenas. So I hope you're able to get a ticket and also my older daughter, www.RheaRaj.com.

My co-host PVSB, who also monnlights as Head of Industry and Client Engagement at Flywheel, the Commerce Acceleration Division of Omnicom, is not able to join us today as he's flying back with his daughter from a visit to Chicago, where we hosted a podcast live from Wrigley Field and the Chicago Cubs dugout.

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Keep this community growing. And third, follow us on LinkedIn between episodes. We're publishing thought leadership, industry analysis, and content you're not going to find anywhere else. All built for CPG and retail community you're already a part of. Search CPG guys on LinkedIn and hit follow or click the link in the digital show notes. Subscribe, rate, follow three simple actions that help us bring more of the conversations that matter to you. And now our guest. Our guest today is Sarp Tuncay, an e-commerce and retail media leader who's led retail media strategy across Amazon and Walmart

And the broader omnichannel ecosystem. Sarp has become an increasingly visible voice in the retail media community, and often you'll find him in speaking engagements in the industry at conferences. At the recently concluded retail media summit, he made the case that AI will not simply replace retail media professionals, but it will challenge those who do not move closer to business decisions and further away from routine execution as most of the industry runs today.

He's also been exploring how Agentic AI could become the next front-end grocery, reshaping how shoppers discover products and how retailers and brands define and measure success. Sarp, welcome to the CPG guys. It's great to have you with us. How are you doing?

Sarp (02:28)

Thank you, Sri. It's genuinely great to be here. I spent my career at the intersection of retail media, e-commerce, shopper marketing, and the commercial side of the business. What has become clear to me is that AI is not just changing our tools, it's changing which parts of our work create real value. The thesis I want to explore today is not the retail media jobs suddenly disappear. It is that routine execution becomes less differentiating.

As platforms automate bidding, pacing, targeting, reporting, and optimization. That creates an important choice of practitioners. We can remain platform operators or we can become business orchestrators, as I said. People who frame the question, understand the context, manage trade-offs, connect signals across retailers, and on the decision. My shorthand for it is simple: platform optimize, but human orchestrate.

And I'm excited to unpack that with you.

Papa Raj (03:28)

So we're gonna get started in a minute here, but before we jump into this deep conversation, a quick reminder to audience, check the digital show notes of this episode, where we'll drop the LinkedIn hyperlinks for Sarp so you can multitask while you listen and you can engage with him directly. All right, Sarp, let's jump right into it. The first one I have is an interesting one, a bedtime story about your son Kai.

And it perfectly frames the human AI collaboration dynamic. Tell us about that bedtime story. What was that moment and how did that moment crystallize your thinking about what's actually changing in retail media?

Sarp (04:00)

Well, it was a very simple moment, Sri. Kai and I were creating a bedtime story together. I had AI help us to get the story started, but then Kai immediately began changing it. He added his own characters, redirected the plot, and shaped the story around and what was meaningful and exciting to him.

Papa Raj (04:22)

That's called a future successful kid, my friend.

Sarp (04:26)

What stayed meet me was that AI could produce the draft, but

Kai owned imagination and the direction. And that felt very similar to what is happening in the retail media. So AI is becoming incredibly capable of producing a first answer. It can recommend a bit, identify a pacing issue, or summarize campaign performance, maybe generate an audience or suggest an optimization. But it does not fully understand why a particular outcome matters to the business. It does not naturally understand.

The context around a retailer relationship, a product launch, an inventory constraint, a profitability target, or a broader shopper objective. So the human contribution is not simply editing the machine's output. It's providing intent, text, judgment, and ownership. So that's that's the moment with Kai helped Me Sri that the most productive model is not human versus AI.

It's human with AI, but very clear roles. Let AI

create possibilities. Let the human decide which possibility is meaningful. In retail media, language platforms can optimize, but humans still need to orchestrate. And I think that is much more empowering conversation than asking whether the technology will replace us.

Papa Raj (05:55)

I personally love the story. The analogy is absolutely fantastic and it can be explained to anybody. But let's get into that human replacement moment right now. You've said that the central risk isn't job loss, it's work that becomes less important as platforms automate and become smarter. That's actually a little bit more unsettling than saying, hey, the job disappears.

When you frame it, this is not the first time. of course when you get on our show you're gonna reach the whole industry, but you've also been on stage

Sarp (06:25)

Yeah.

Papa Raj (06:27)

saying it and people have heard you say it. How do they react? What do they tell you when you get off stage?

Sarp (06:33)

There is usually a moment of discomfort because people recognize the situation immediately. Like most practitioners are not seriously expecting to walk into the office tomorrow and discover that AI has eliminated their entire position. What they are seeing is more subtle. Like they're seeing activities they spend years learning, become easier, faster, and increasingly automated. Like

Bit adjustments like pacing checks, targeting recommendations, let's say performance summaries and routine reporting once demonstrated expertise. Now many of these capabilities are becoming embedded in the platform themselves. That creates a very personal question, Sri. If the platform can do more of what made successful, where does my value come from next? The reason

I describe the risk as irrelevance is that a role can continue existing while gradually losing influence. You can keep the title, okay? You can remain busy, you can produce a lot of work, but if that work becomes disconnected from the decisions that shape growth, profitability, investment, and retailer strategy, then the role begins to to matter less, you know.

Papa Raj (07:56)

Of course, Sarp. So if I'm a hu I'm if I'm somebody listening to this podcast, the way I'm gonna react is I'm gonna have some nervousness for sure. But what here on the CPG guys, we agree with you is you're a hundred percent right. The level of learning that AI produces through machine learning is significant and we'll be better off if we anticipated that.

Plan for that and then learnt and adapted to a new role, which you've explained in the analogy with your son Kai very clearly, the imagination aspect. And earlier you've also said platform operator versus business orchestrator. We all need to start thinking about business orchestration and retail media world, not just running a platform. So now we're keeping that as a backdrop. You've described AI as already embedded in bidding, budget pacing, targeting, reporting, not in a future state, but today.

Which retail media network do you feel has doing it the best? They've gone the furthest in automating execution. And what does it mean for those on that platform?

Sarp (09:00)

Well, Sri, if I had to identify one, I would point to Amazon because of the maturity scale and sophistication of its advertising ecosystem. But I wanna be careful not to turn this into a ranking of retail media networks because the more important point is the direction of travel we are in. Like Amazon, Walmart Connect, Instacart, like Kroger Precision Marketing, Roundel and other networks are all moving toward like greater automation.

So the pace and specific capabilities vary, but the economic incentive is consistent. So platforms can process more data than any individual practitioner, or they can monitor activity continuously, they can identify patterns across a huge number of interactions, and they can apply an optimization decision at a speed and scale that manual teams cannot match. Cannot do that. That is good for the industry, Sri.

When it improves execution and removes repetitive work. The implication for practitioners, however, is significant. Historically, part of our value came from operating the machine, right? We knew how to navigate the interface, interpret the reports, make the bid adjustments, and keep the campaign on track. Increasingly, the machine is taking responsibility for more of that execution.

The practitioner's job, therefore, Sri, moves above the platform. So, what business outcome should the platform optimize toward? What constraints does it not see? Or what should we accept its recommendation? When should we challenge it? How does this retailer fit into total portfolio? How does the result mean for the broader business? So the winning practitioner is not necessarily the person who can make the most manual changes inside a campaign manager.

It is the person, in my opinion, who can provide the machine with a better objective, interpret its outputs intelligently and connect that output to commercial decisions.

Papa Raj (11:09)

Do you feel brands are doing this today?

Sarp (11:14)

Well it it depends. It can look very

well managed campaign depending on the brands. The budgets are pacing correctly, like the automatic recommendations are being applied by the brands, the dashboards is current, the performance narrative has been generated, or the report looks polished. Everyone feels as if the campaign is under control, but the real question here, Sri, is

Whether the team is controlling the business outcome or simply observing a well-automated system. This is where the illusion appears. That's an illusion. A platform may be doing exactly what it what it was instructed to do. It may be efficiently optimizing toward Rust, conversion, or any other campaign objective, but nobody, nobody may be asking whether that objective is still the right one. So the questions would be.

Are we creating incremental growth or mainly capturing existent demand? Are we reaching new households or re repeatedly reaching our established buyers? Are we supporting the product that matters most commercially? Or are we driving demand for an item with an inventory constraint? Are we maximizing the apparent

Papa Raj (12:30)

No brand is doing this today, I can tell you that with conviction.

Sarp (12:34)

return inside one retailer while neglecting a strategic opportunity somewhere else? So a dashboard.

Can tell you the system is functioning, but it cannot on its own tell you that the organization selected the right destination. So the illusion of control occurs when a brand confuses efficient execution with strategic management. So the more sophisticated automation becomes, the more disciplined humans need to be about objectives, guardrails, assumptions, and outcomes.

I believe automation should reduce the effort required to operate the campaign. It should not reduce the rigor required to question the campaign.

Papa Raj (13:21)

There's no no doubt about it whatsoever, right? And I I can also tell you most brands look at the dashboard and they take one or two actions.

Try to look smart and ask one or two questions. No one is doing it as comprehensively at as you say. That's what we call an illusion of control. So if an automation

Sarp (13:36)

Yes.

Papa Raj (13:37)

creates an illusion of control, which is your phrase, by the way, which we've heard publicly, what does it actually look like on the ground for a brand team exactly where I want to go next when they're managing a campaign? Because they're trying to show the illusion of control versus actual control.

Sarp (13:53)

So the hardest part is letting go of the thing that made you feel valuable, you know, like a great operator has visible proof of expertise. Sri, that they understand the platform, okay, they catch problems early, they make optimization quickly, they know where to look, which lever to pull on how to keep the work moving. And that expertise creates confidence and professional identity.

However, I think the orchestrator's work is different than a practitioner and often less tidy. An orchestrator has to operate in ambiguity. They need to understand different objectives across sales, marketing, finance, agencies, and retailer partners. They have to frame choices where there may not be one perfect answer. They may need to say, oh if you prioritize efficiency,

We may sacrifice household penetration, or if we invest behind a strategic retailer, we may need to accept a lower short-term return. That is harder than changing a bit because trade-offs create consequences. There is also a communication challenge theory. Operators are often rewarded for knowing the answer. However, the orchestrators need to be comfortable asking better questions.

Surfacing disagreements and helping a group make a decision. The key here is not to discard execution expertise, for sure. That foundation remains valuable. The opportunity is to build on top of it. The practitioners who understand how execution really works and can also translate it into commercial decision has an incredibly powerful combination. I mean

You do not stop understanding the platform Sri, you stop allowing the platform to define the limits of your role.

Papa Raj (15:57)

Superbly said, actually. So now let's go deeper in operator and orchestrator. Shopline, right up top of this episode, we've talked about it. What is the hardest part of the identity shift for practitioners who I would largely say last 10 years, the expertise around retail media has really come around operations. What are they going to struggle with?

Sarp (16:27)

Imagine one retailer is delivering very strong campaign efficiency theory, Sri. Like conversion is high, ROAS is strong, the algorithm identifies additional demand and recommends increasing the investment. From the platform's perspective, that can be completely rational recommendation. The system is optimizing locally based on the objective and information it can see. But now

Introduce a broader business context. Perhaps another retailer is strategically important because the brand needs to expand household penetration there. Perhaps the company has a distribution opportunity tied to the retailer. Perhaps the high-performing product has limited inventory while another product needs greater support. Perhaps the strongest short-term ROAS coming from existing branded demand.

Maybe rather than incremental shoppers. Or perhaps the organization is under profitability pressure and needs to account for margins that are not that are not fully represented in the platform's optimization logic. So now the best platform decision and the best business decision may no longer be the same. You know? A platform can tell you where the next dollar appears most efficient within its environment.

And a human a human has to decide where that dollar creates the greatest value across the entire commercial system that requires connecting media performance with retail strategy, shopper behavior, supply, pricing, promotion, assortment, and maybe financial objectives as well. And that's what I mean when I say when I say AI optimizes locally while humans optimize globally,

The machine sees optimization opportunities here. The orchestrator sees the portfolio, the constraints and the consequences for sure.

Papa Raj (18:31)

But

if we went into the optimization element, right? Local optimization can it is already taking place today. You've given the Amazon ex example. But the machine is totally capable of global optimization of a budget across retailers and business goals. Now most companies cannot think this way, but do you know of any real-west scenario where the distinction actually made campaigns happen, retail media outcomes actually happen, where you looked at that global optimization, which is how the budget should be done.

versus just a local operation.

Sarp (19:06)

I think Sri, we are still in the early stages of that. You know, the direction is becoming visible. Like platform expertise remains important. Like retail media is complex, the networks are different, and brands still need people who understand how execution works. But platform knowledge alone is becoming less sufficient as a long term differentiator in a global or a local level.

So the more forward looking organizations are looking for people, Sri, I think, who can translate retail media into commercial impact. So I think the question is like, can this person connect media platforms to sales and profitability for the company? Can they engage credibly with finance? Can they explain incrementality without relying on a single platform metric?

Or can they connect activity across retailers? Or can they influence brands, sales, shopper marketing, agencies, and leadership? Or can they turn data into a recommendation rather than simply reporting what happens? So I think those capabilities describe a growth partner. So a platform, I think, Sri, a platform specialist may be extremely knowledgeable, you know, but their expertise can become

Bounded by a particular interface, retailer, or a tool. But a growth partner carries a broader and more durable set of skills because the work is anchored in business decisions. So I also think the split affects promotion, you know? the people who move closer to planning investment decisions, cross-functional leadership, and commercial outcomes.

are more likely to expand the scope of their roles. So yes, hiring and promotion are beginning to reflect the difference, even if the organizations do not always use the labels platform specialist and growth partner. The real signal, I think, is what the organization expects the person to own, platform activity or business outcomes.

Papa Raj (21:18)

All right, we should talk about those experts and practitioners. But before that, let me remind our audience that I'm speaking with Sarp Tuncay a digital leader in our industry, and we're having a deep discussion on the role of AI in media and retail media. So we've set two practitioner paths: platform specialists.

Who already do most of that stuff today, the real operators at the end of the day, versus the growth partner who become business orchestrators today, If you look at agencies, your experience and being around in the industry and looking at brands, are they hiring and promoting people differently based on that split yet? What you just literally told me.

Sarp (22:00)

ideal all three change together, you know, but if I have to choose who starts, I would say the practitioner. Not because the practitioners control the entire organization or carry all the responsibility, they do not. But they are closest to the work and often have the first opportunity to change how the conversation is framed. a practitioner can take the same performance information and

Presented to two very different ways. They can say, here is the ROS, here's the cost per click, and here's how we adjusted the campaign. Or they can say, they can say, let's here's what changed. Here's what we believe drove the change, and here's the implication for growth and profitability, and here are the decisions available to us. I think the second version.

involves a different kind of discussion Sri. managers also have a critical role here because they determine what works is rewarded. If they continue celebrating only tactical activity and local platform metrics, practitioners will naturally keep producing the same those same outputs. And clients and senior leaders need to clarify what business outcomes matter and provide access

To the information required to connect media with those outcomes. But change can begin with one person arriving at the next meeting with a more useful question and a clearer recommendation. you cannot always change the measurement system immediately, Sri. Like, you know? You can change the quality of the conversation immediately. That's where I think practitioners, practitioners have more power than they sometimes realize, you know?

Papa Raj (23:51)

The problem, Sarp, is they have more power than they realize. There's no doubt about it, because moving from platform operator to orchestrator is not rocket science. You can do this today. But they've fallen into the trap of the scorecard and trying to show the illusion of control, as we've said. That's the real issue at the table, right? So let's talk about business impact, So the success metrics today are largely illusion of control. Do you agree?

Sarp (24:16)

The real risk is irrelevance, right?

Papa Raj (24:18)

Absolutely.

But they're focused

on illusion of control to show their bosses that the ROAS is exactly what they want it to be, not needed to be. You've already explained earlier that some may have profitability challenges, and that's what you got to focus on. Some may have distribution. Retail media is not running that way. So let's talk about business impact, growth, penetration, profitability, distribution. Who in the organization really should lead this change? The practitioner who runs the platform, their manager, or in the case of an agency, the client itself.

Sarp (24:50)

I would start with a simple question before jumping into that. Like in the last month, like were you invited in the conversation before the decision was made or after the decision was made? That's I think like reporters are typically brought in after the decision, you know? So they are they're asked to execute, measure, or explain. decision support partners are brought in before the decision.

So they're asked to help define the objective, assess the options, and identify the trade-offs and recommend the direction. And a second test is to review what happens at the end of your meetings, Do the stakeholders leave knowing what happened? Or do they leave knowing what to do next? So if your work ends with a performance recap, you may be functioning primarily as a reporter,

So if your work ends with choices, implications, and a recommendation, then you're operating as a decision partner, So I would also audit the language people use when they approach you. Are they saying, can you pull this? Can you update this? Can you send the numbers? Or are they asking what do you think? what are our options? What would you recommend? What are we missing here? Those signals tell you how the organization currently perceives your value.

So this is gonna give that answer that you're looking for. So the purpose of the audit here is not to criticize reporting. Reporting is necessary for sure. The question whether reporting is the end of your contribution or beginning of a business conversation. So my advice is to add one layer to every recurring deliverable before we decide who is leading, who is making the change what.

Why it matters what decision creates, what you recommend. that's how you gradually move from describing the business to helping shape it,

Papa Raj (26:50)

I love that. So this episode is gonna be a lot of fun, we've said the real risk is irrelevance, right? Being seen as a reporter rather than a addition support partner. How does one help somebody audit and understand whether they're a reporter or whether they're trying to shift? How do we let them know? Like if it might sound harsh, but how?

Sarp (27:15)

Honestly, retail media like grew incredibly quickly, and the industry need people who could build campaign, navigate platform, manage investment, and create reporting systems. Those were the immediate requirements, Sri, and this is what like many practitioners were trained and reverted to. Now I think the function is maturing.

So retail media itself is becoming more connected to the broader commercial system, which means those people on like practitioners, let's say, need to understand more than media metrics, as you speak, you know. They need to understand how the business makes money. What does the margin look like across product and retailers? how do supply constraint affect responsible level of demand generation?

What does leadership mean by incrementality? How do promotions, pricing, content, availability and assortment change media performance? is it incremental sales, new households, category growth, profitable growth, or some combination of those? I mean, Sri, those definitions matter because two teams can use the word incrementality while actually discussing different outcomes,

The opportunity is significant because business fluency travels with you. A platform interface can change, a retailer can introduce a new tool, an optimization feature can become automated. But the ability to understand profitability, diagnose a commercial problems here. Like frame a trade-off and communicate with leadership remains valuable across platform and organizations.

So the next generation of retail media leaders, I believe, will stand and understand media, but they will also be comfortable speaking the language of shopper, the retailers, sales, finance, supply, and the brand. So that combination is what turns media expertise into business leadership.

Papa Raj (29:23)

Love, love, love what you said. So now let's go to metrics.

You recommend mastering margin calculations, supply constraints, leadership's definition of incrementality, what that means. I can tell you for a fact, Sarp, that's not how we build retail media expertise in this country from a brand perspective, because it's again been the illusion of control. But let's get your opinion. That's mine. How much of that business fluency exists today across the retail media practitioner community? Be honest with us. What have you seen?

Sarp (30:00)

I everyone is saying AI AI now like like twenty years ago why when I first started this job like fifteen years ago everyone saying mobile is rising, mobile is rising, So I wanna spend less time asking like what can I do with AI and more time asking like as I said on my presentation, what should humans do now that AI can do more, you know? So the technology conversation is everywhere, Sri, and it's important.

We are discussing new tools, new agents, automation, creative generation, data analysis, or let's say personalization and new shopper experiences. But the organizational conversation is not moving the same speed, today. So if AI if AI absorbs more execution, how should we redesign roles? We don't have the answer. What should the practitioners stop doing?

What new capabilities should leaders reward? How do we give people access to the commercial information they need to make better decisions? Or how should agencies and brands work together when automated execution becomes a baseline capability? Or how does measurement, as you said, need to evolve when the shopper journey may increasingly begin with an AI agent rather than a traditional search box or a retailer interface? And

Perhaps most importantly, who remains accountable when an automated system makes or recommends more of the decision? So I believe agentic AI could become a new front end of commerce. The shopper may increasingly express an intention, delegate part of the discovery process, and allow an agent to evaluate options that could reshape product discovery.

And brand consideration and even how retailers and brand define visibility. So, Sri, the human and organizational implications, I think, are just as important as the technology to answer your question. So we need to discuss the new shape of work, the new shape of leadership before come to metrics, and the new shape of accountability. So technology is moving fast, human adaptation is moving more slowly.

And the gap is conversation I want to to have more loudly.

Papa Raj (32:21)

So I'm thinking through this in about three, three and a half weeks or so, you and I will be at groceryshop, where there's gonna be a lot of conversation about AI and commerce. I can bet my bottom dollar on that one, and it's gonna dominate the agenda. A lot of the mainstage speakers already in that sphere. What do you wanna have the conversation at grocery shop that do you think will be meaningful?

Sarp (32:47)

I would want really the brands, retailers discuss to separate the assistance from ownership in the discussion when they discuss about AI, because I know that AI will be discussed for sure. So using AI aggressively, where it creates speed, scale and productive capacity, let it support research,

Let it summarize information, let it identify patterns. I want this to be discussed between technology owners, retailers, and the brands. So we have to understand that brand must still own the objective, the judgment, the distinct point of view, and the final decision for sure. And it might a draft campaign brief, but brand needs to decide what shopper tension is truly worth addressing.

And in this position, then AI might generate multiple creative routes with the help of agency, but the brand still needs to determine which one is authentic and strategically meaningful. And the AI tools or capabilities of the retail media networks that moment might recommend an investment change. But the business needs to understand the trade-off and

own the commercial consequences. So the AI tool or whatever we speak about on AI, which part of AI, might summarize what happened, but a human needs to explain why it matters and what should happen next. So I think the danger that we have to discuss in grocery shop is not that brands use AI, are we losing jobs? The danger is that they begin accepting generic output without adding proprietary context.

Brand judgment or a clear point of view. So everyone has access to similar tools. The tool itself is not the differentiation. The differentiation is the the the quality of the question here is the uniqueness of inputs, the clarity of the strategy, and the courage of the decision. So that's what I mean when I say let AI write the draft, you own the story. AI can accelerate the work.

It should not replace responsibility of any parties of the ecosystem, agency, brand or retail network. But it means that what the work says, what it means, what brand chooses to do is is what the main responsibility.

Papa Raj (35:17)

Fair enough. So let's close the episode, which that very sentiment. Go back to question one, which was the story with your son, which kind of opened your eyes on this aspect. Operators versus orchestrators. Let me write the draft. You own the story. What is your advice to brands on this philosophy?

Sarp (35:36)

Well, I really enjoy the conversation with it. Like the brands need to be open minded and think out of the box. I know everyone is under the pressure in sales and price increases, tariffs. So we are in a very tough time. So it's tough time for everyone. But also tough times bring brands, retail networks and also the agencies.

A chance for creativity to make things easier, actually less time and less costly. So I think we have to think about how to utilize the assets we have, the human we have, instead of let's use AI and have less headcount. Like the mindset needs to be changed. As I said since the beginning, like orchestrators are still needed.

You cannot ask AI to do everything for you. If that is the mind ca that if that is the mindset of the leaders, they're gonna fail in the next five years. I'll I'll that's what I'm gonna say.

Papa Raj (36:41)

Very well said, Sarp. Let me remind our listeners you can find all of our content by simply going to a web browser and typing cpg guys.com as the URL to our audience. I want to thank you for the clicks, likes, comments, direct messages, meeting us at trade shows, coming to our events, recording episodes with us and our sponsors. We're grateful for you. If today's conversation sparked something for you, a new idea, a fresh perspective, just a reminder why this industry is worth showing up for every day, share it, tag us, tell a colleague. The more voices we bring into this community, the sharp all of us get.

You get to over 46,000 followers on LinkedIn that trust us to inform, educate, and entertain you about our industry. And here's my big takeaways from this conversation. Number one, AI is already here. You don't have a choice. Don't be a platform operator, be a business orchestrator.

Understand metrics, get into the business, understand business profitability, understand why a campaign is run, understand big picture optimization. Distribution is a very key word every retail media operator should make themselves familiar with, and then really hone down on the why the campaign is run versus trying to impress with the illusion of control. That's easy. That's my big takeaways from today. And I love the story and analogy that Sar Pordi gave us with his son Kai, which is inspirational for this whole 40 minute.

Conversation. So, Sarp, I want to thank you for joining us for a fantastic conversation on AI and retail media today. Thank you.

Sarp (38:03)

Thank you, Sri. I genuinely enjoy this conversation because I think we are discussing something much bigger than retail media here. Retail media happens to be one of the first places where we can see knowledge work being transformed in real time. The technology story is important, but the human story, is even more important. How do we evolve? How do we remain relevant? How do we create greater value as more execution becomes automated? For me,

The answer comes back to a simple principle. Move closer to the decisions. Move closer to the business context. Move closer to the questions that matter. Move closer to the trade-offs that shape growth. And move closer to accountability for the outcome. AI will continue getting better at execution for sure. That's not something we should resist. We should use it to create capacity for higher value work. So

If listeners take away one question, I would encourage them to stop asking only will AI take my job? Instead, ask, Am I spending my time doing work AI should already be doing? And what higher value work will I do instead? So let AI write the draft, you own the story, platform optimize, human orchestrate. Sri thank you for having me. It has been a fantastic conversation.

Papa Raj (39:24)

Sarp, this is one of our best episodes of the year and a much needed conversation. Long, long, long overdue on the CPG Guys to our audience. I will see you next week. Keep pushing these conversations forward like Sarp did today. And Paparaj, on behalf of my co-host, Mr. Peter V.S. Bandar PVSB. This has been the CPG Guys Podcast.