Beyond the Pivot: How AI, Retail Media & Commerce Are Redefining Growth (Melissa Burdick, President & Co-Founder at Pacvue)

We spent our last conversation talking about how quickly commerce is changing. As brands move from understanding that shift to actually responding to it, where do you think they should be placing their biggest bets today?

As AI becomes embedded across media, content, retail and commerce operations, do you think the traditional boundaries between those functions start to disappear and what does that mean for how organizations should be structured?

There are more platforms, signals and opportunities competing for investment than ever before. How should leaders determine what is truly driving incremental growth versus simply shifting dollars or attribution from one channel to another?

As more decisions move from human-led workflows toward AI-driven and eventually autonomous systems, what decisions should brands be comfortable handing over to technology and where does human judgment remain critical?

If we look three to five years ahead, what does a truly AI-native commerce organization look like—and what will the companies that win have done differently from those that struggle to keep up?