Justin H. 00:09

Welcome to Future Shop. I'm here with Wendy Liebmann, Founder, CEO and Chief Shopper.

Wendy L. 00:16

I love it. I love to be introduced drum roll. So, all of you have already got it right? You already figured out I'm here with my playmate, Justin Honaman, my Amazon Web Service guru of all things consumer products, food and beverage, that's part of consumer restaurants and something. Did they give you? Anything else since we last? Oh, my God, I forgot that. Yes, exactly. How could I forget that? Thank you for introducing me, no, but thank you for introducing me, Dear Justin, I love that. Yeah. Drum roll. Friday afternoon, Halloween, everybody. For those of you who were recording this on Halloween, today, I'm wearing my Graffiti top just to pretend I'm a downtown girl, which I am. Justin is wearing his white skirt, if you're listening and not watching, I know he does have a fabulous A behind him, saying A is for absolutely fabulous and excellent. So well done. So,

Justin H. 01:15

So, my new custom neon. I mean,

Wendy L. 01:20

I know, I see it, I see it. I'll have a custom W and then we'll be WA, you know, or, or, anyway, anyway, dear child, good to see you. It's been a couple of months. You've been busy. I've been busy. Yeah, I always appreciate our catch up. There's so much going on in our world of retail and technology and consumer goods and restaurants and Halloween and candy and things and retail. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I, I want to talk to you about a number of things. One is, what's on everybody's minds these days, because it's spooky enough on Halloween. But there are many other things you did, or you have a wonderful share group that, and you had your big dinner, and I, sadly, was sailing down the Rhine, so I could not join you. But I'm sure, between that and all your client work, that you know, you've been hearing, you know, the rumblings of how people are feeling as we go move quickly through fourth quarter and in the first quarter. So, I thought we'd have that chat including, you know, where is the AI conversation going, and NRF and 2026, and we have so much. So how about we begin there? What's, what are you hearing from your share groups and clients, all those things that aren't, you know, confidential? Yeah.

Justin H. 02:39

So, for those that are listening and maybe listening to this episode in the future, we're in q4 of 2025,

and for retail, you know what that means? I mean, everyone's eagerly anticipating all day and so, I mean, that's certainly Top of Mind with just about every retailer we work with, you know, wanting to make sure they have inventory right, that they're, you know, ready to engage and build top of funnel T engagement with customers are not having sourcing issues around product at this point. You know, it's kind of too late. In fact, you're already into next year, probably on some inventory. And then I'd say also, just there's a continued interest, and like, I'll say on the back-office side with cross industry about getting our data better and getting better reporting and better insights. I think that's been a really interesting theme the last couple of weeks, as it goes with the AI conversation. But you know, while AI, I think, is one thing we'll talk a lot about today, there's the run the business, part of the business, and so, you know, supply chain, operations, allocation, planning, execution in store, employee engagement, hiring, seasonal workers, all those things are top of mind right now, going, Yeah, and do

Wendy L. 03:50

yeah and do you have a sense that you know that the big T word tariffs are have actually impacted What holiday will look like for a lot of retailers, or have they just that was already done, you know, buying was done, you know, 3-6-9, months ago, and so they've been able to accommodate all of that in terms of both supply chain and pricing.

Justin:

I'm not an expert on, you know, the tariff policies. It's, I mean, quite frankly, the changes so regularly between countries, and it's difficult. I think for me, I wouldn't have a real good perspective on that. What I can say is, you know, you have a number of factors, though, playing in, not just that one, but you have interest rates coming down. For example, in the US market, you have the consumer, which, if you look at the reports, the numbers are expected to be a good holiday. At the same time, a value conscious consumer to you know, certainly be thinking about that. And also, the high end of retail is doing really well. So, there's kind of this dichotomy of two ends of the spectrum, but from a consumer goods perspective, I mean, certainly upstream input costs are in the. Kind of the margin compression there within the CPG brands is one thing that's top of mind. And then how do you or what do you pass to the retailer, and then what do they pass to the shopper? I mean, there those, there's a tension in that space across the industry, yeah, yeah.

Wendy L. 05:16

It's certainly that challenge as we move forward. I did hear one of, you know, in doing my own sort of as I've been wandering around the world and country, you know that, on the one hand, people just saying, Listen, we cannot be devoting so much time every week, every day to, you know, what? What the what ifs. We've got to get off and run the business. So, we've got to make some assumptions and move forward, otherwise, all we'll be doing is sitting there with our heads and, you know, supply chain computers. Yeah, yeah. There's a pragmatism. I think that's yeah, coming at least from the at least on the retailer side. I think hopefully, you know, we're moving forward on the manufacturer side as well. Yeah,

Justin:

Yeah, I tell my customers too. Like, okay, if there's that, if you know, think, look at the supply chain, you can walk all the way back to covid and see all the challenges. And then there's the barge and the canal, and then, you know, political unrest in other countries. Like, I think if you operate with the mindset of, there's always going to be something else coming. Like, how do we build for resilience? How do we build for flexibility? How do we build for, you know, the scale or the options so we don't disrupt the business? That's the way to think about it, versus worrying about one thing or something different. I mean, you know, no one a year ago was talking about agentic commerce. And, you know, here this year, agentic is probably the most used word, in a lot of the meetings that I'm in these days,

Wendy L. 06:43

yeah, yeah. Well, and I also think, to your point, from a consumer, shopper perspective, the shopper is in the same point. They're now saying, okay, chaos. It's chaos. It's been chaos now for 10 years, five years, 10 years, it ramps up.

I've got to figure out a game plan and just keep going. Now, you know, we've got other issues. It's not maybe we're not talking about inflation now. Maybe we're talking about, you know, Will I have a job? Will I have health care? You know, Will I have SNAP benefits, all of those things, which, you know, for some people, doesn't leave them with many operating options, personally, but I think it's, it's a similar, we're seeing that and allow How America Shops® work, that, you know, shoppers are like, I get it. I've been here. I got to have my I got to take control myself. I cannot depend on, you know, the ebbs and flows of, you know, the market, so to speak. And so, I think there is that sense of getting on with it and, you know, and assuming that the chaos will continue in whatever form, yeah. So, I think we're seeing none of that pragmatism.

Justin H. 07:51

Yeah, yep, brands on the retail and the restaurants, and you talked about the places I cover in the CPG side are, there's a lot of additional interest now in better data on better signals, right? And then what to do with that, and now you have environments where multiple signals can be sensed and realized and recognized and acted on in a much more flexible way than ever before. That's interesting, especially to the medium to big size companies that have, like, some of the investment dollars to put around something like that,

Wendy L. 08:23

Yeah, well, I must say, and that's to the AI agentic, or, you know, just large, large data models,

is that whole conversation is like, okay, we're commercially. I mean, not from a shopper standpoint, perhaps, but commercially everybody we talked to was, you know, got their own use cases of what they're doing. I mean, we were at a retailer doing one of our retail immersions this week, and they were talking about the way they think about creating media, creating advertising for the holidays, you know, creating messages social. And, you know, a year ago, they would have done one campaign, and they would have had 20 people with their hands all over it. Yes, no, that works, and they would have run it now, because of AI, they've got four and they've got four that are going, and their same team, they have a small team, but now they've got four going, and they'll see how they work, and they can see this one works better than the other. And so that is, like, we're already into it, kind of thing on what I mean. Or the commercial side,

Justin H. 09:29

that's interesting. The reason, I think that's a great example is oftentimes, at, you know, with customers, or we lean into, like, the big the large brands that have AI teams and data teams and reporting teams and master government, data governance teams. But the smaller retailers, the smaller brands, or the organizations with smaller I'd say operations oftentimes are it’s assumed that they're not going to be able to keep up, when, in fact, I actually think the tools. Have become much easier to use and are providing competitive advantage to groups. So, in this example, the one you just listed, this is not a job elimination function. This is truly like better performance and activation and engagement and results with a smaller team, and, you know, pulsing up their capability,

Wendy L. 10:21

That's right. And, you know, it reminds me, because you and I have some longevity in this business, it reminds me of, you know, the days when all of a sudden, we could excuse the expression Google it.

And, you know, where we used to have to hope somebody still had their university, you know, their college card so they could get into the library somewhere, you know, still to do their research, and then all of a sudden, we got these, you know, search engines that we could use, and it made a company our size much more competitive, you know, even in our own data. So, I think that's been, it's been really interesting. The other thing I will tell you is, you know, I was sashaying down the Rhine in in Europe, and I decided to do my own test of using

11:44

AI, using one of the AI platforms on multiple levels as I went. Here's a picture, tell me where I am. That was scary, well, because they got it between location and whatever else. Here's a picture, where am I? That was one thing. There were other things, like, I've got, you know, three hours in this place. Here are my specifications. What should I see? You know, whatever. It's raining. Where will I go? Kind of saying, that was very interesting. And then, of course, I saw retail, because, you know, we'd go on vacation, and we look at retail as we do. And I saw new concepts. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. It's just three stores. Oh no, look at that. There are 900 stores. Here's all the background, here's their financials, here's everything. So, it was my use case, just for the breadth of what we could do. So anyway, just telling you that, I mean, you're inspiring me to do that,

Justin:

yes, and you're like, I can't imagine going back, you know, when, when you do that, and in that same thing is happening for shoppers. I mean, I don't, I didn't pull the numbers up on my charts here, but you know, the how you search for product now, as we, and many of you know that are have been around, it's like the last couple weeks, I feel like this is coming up all the time, but like, the way that you search on, you know, using, like, an Anthropic or a Perplexity or ChatGPT to start your search, and then, like, shop, like, that's significant. Like, it's changing the way that retailers present product, the way that brands to put product out there. I mean, like, this is, and I don't think people realize how much it's going to shift, and because there's still front end of it, but you know, you can take your grocery list and ask it a model, to an agent to go and find it, drop it in a cart and put it on Instacart and on its way to your house.

And who owns the shopper in that moment, like the and that's it, agent or the retailer from which the product came from, or is it the brand like it's there's all kinds of things the way you do, price, pack, planning and consumer goods that that old days for E commerce is going to change dramatically. So, I mean, there's just a lot that goes with that. Yeah, and you're

Wendy L. 13:16

Yeah, and you're absolutely right. You know, I think about so much of that now and then I think about, and I think you and I discussed it last time, the implications for pricing transparency, right? Because now I'll say, you know, I want the lowest price on or here are my requirements, and I don't want to spend more than whatever. And all of a sudden, as you suggest, that's what starts to emerge. So, one of the things I know, you and I have talked about a lot, and we hope to WSL some feathers at some point. Is this discussion about, one is we here already? If we're here already, is it more of a commercial business efficiency proposition? Where are consumers as shoppers, using all this? Are they already using it. Because, as you've said, this is not new news. This is technology that's been growing, changing over time. So, I think that conversation is, you know, what's worth it? Or, you know, how are people thinking about it? Is really interesting for.

Justin H. 14:15:00

it? I'll throw another angle into this conversation, which we haven't talked about, and that's around talent. This morning, I was part of a panel here in Atlanta with leaders from some of the big companies here in town, and the conversation was really around how talent and talent sourcing, talent development, employee engagement, and then also, like recruiting, is how has shifted dramatically in just the last 18 months, 24 months, not talking about layoffs or mass hiring, but just you know where and how technology is becoming a bigger part of the operation side, as well as the candidate side, and as candidates for jobs or using those tools. Right? It's challenging the companies to have to move. Of quickly to know what's real versus what's not right, and sift through, I mean, it's just, it was, it was like, there's, like, a whole other way to think about technology, and in our industries, you know, every company is going to have to have to deal with that. You know, anybody that's doing hiring is going to have to deal with, you know, candidates that may or may not need a resume in the future, quite frankly. Or, you know, how do you screen top candidates and do that? So, it was really fascinating,

Wendy L. 15:23

yeah, Maryann, who's our VP of creative services behind the scenes today, producing this, as always, you know, she's hiring a new person, you know, to add to her busy, you know, load of all the things she's responsible for. And, you know, I mean, I just think about how different that hiring practice is, you know, today, that it was whatever ago, and just thinking about that. And then the other thing, I think a lot about the sort of counterpoint to all of this is okay, given all the efficiency, all the things you talked about, who owns the customer, who owns the consumer as shopper? Now, is there this sort of, you know, swing that also says, as a shopper, also want this, you know, personal connection, because I can get even more done without it. And does that say to me, yeah, but I really want to, you know, give somebody a hug. excuse me, not right, but you know what I mean. And what does that mean for the physical space? What does it mean for opportunities to build community and engagement and loyalty and all of those things? It opens a door for me to, you know, deliver more in person experiences. No

Justin H. 16:37

No question the well, let's just start with a quick for those that might be new to the agentic conversation, I'll give a quick kind of if you want to call it a definition. So, when we talk about agentic AI, this is where you're using systems to do things autonomously, right? That these agents are making decisions and taking actions based on either what has been learned or a set of parameters and whatnot, with minimal human intervention. So that's where you start hearing concern and excitement all the same time. And so just that's at a high level. You know how you might think about it, the from an Agentic perspective, you could use, for example, Agentic AI to do things like go grab point of sale data and analysis and do an analysis of it. You could use it for looking at historical performance or price optimization, or in the world of consumer goods, revenue growth management, or RGM, right, which we talked about, which is significant. So, all these are potential use cases now with customers. Though, today I'll say that the top three areas of interest across the board have been around search and how search and discover-ability of product, right, or platform, right? Commerce platform is top of mind. The second is personalization, which, as many of you probably know, listening and watching is not new, but has, it's changing dramatically, and how it's done and how it can engage, you can use it to engage. And the third is loyalty. And loyalty, you know, it's been a hot topic with all the generative AI excitement, but now with agentic, it's even at another level, but mainly around, like, who owns the customer, and how do I build a relationship with them?

Wendy L. 18:10

them? Yeah, and there, they're things that appear to be, you know, if we say to people, what's on your mind, what's on, you know, aside from, how do I just drive traffic to my you know, 5000 stores? How do I get people to come into the physical space?

Wendy L. 19:36

You know, they seem to be the key. A lot of the key things people are looking at in terms of 2026, and where they're investing, and what they're not looking at, what questions really, they need to be asking, as opposed to, yeah, we can find lots of answers today. But what? What am I? What might I be missing if I don't know now, in the shifting landscape where I where, where I should look? So, what might I be missing here? Guru of all consumer-packaged goods, retail restaurants, technology

Justin H. 18:58

Last week, I was with one of our partners, and they, they play in the fraud, the security space, identity, intelligence and payment actually space and in the room with us were, you know, consumer goods, manufacturers, retailers, restaurant groups, other industries too. I was most interested in those first three. But I mean, and while agentic was interesting, most of them were, like, really focused on the tactics of, how do I, you know, secure transactions. How do I engage and know the customer and make sure that they have confidence in doing business with me? What are the tools and techniques around that? What do I do about my data? You know, I brought I was like, agentic, sounds good. What about your data? And everyone's like, oh my god, I'm still using Excel to do any sort of reporting. So, like, I think we have to remember first of all that this is while there's a lot of excitement energy around agentic commerce and agentic AI, which we all should be leaning into and understanding the run the business part is, for many customers and many companies, is like, still, you know, it's tough unless you're a digital, native brand. That's the one. That's one thing I would highlight. And then second, I do feel like the line of business leaders more than ever now, and the executive teams more than ever in, I'd say the last couple of years, are really engaged in this conversation. It is no longer just an IT thing, or, you know, it, or CIOs, CTO has got it. I mean, this is truly a game changer, business challenging, business disruptive, potentially so better to be understanding, engaging, early,

Wendy L. 20:30

yeah, and it almost requires, as you were just describing it, on everything that we do as a company, one does as a company. What's the impact of this? What could be the impact. And then what's the counterpoint to it, whether it's you said you talked about hiring, you talked about data, you talked about, you know, all of these things, security, loyalty, you know, pricing, all of the things you just talked about. And literally, it is taking all those assets that or approaches, or whatever you want to call it, that a company has, and saying, where does this play in that space, and where could it enhance so then, where is it problematic? One thing you have inspired in me, in this discussion, both personally and in our organization, is people play, experiment, get to know, see what you're doing. You know, we're going to do some primary research in the next couple of weeks, talking one on one to people, shoppers, about what they're using, how they're using, do they even know that they're using? Because in some ways, we don't know the questions to ask in a broader survey. There's a lot of data out there, but I think where I worry that we're missing some of the deeper sociological and economic and,

Wendy 23:26

dare I say, political implications of this. And we just want to understand what how people are thinking about it, so we can then go off and do a do some broader work. So, yeah, that's certainly framing up.

Justin H. 21:55

that's one of the things I love about one of the things I It's not that I wasn't this way before I came to Amazon five years ago, but I have really, you know, bought into and I really see the value of thinking about

Justin H. 23:51

a problem statement this way is start, you know, and it sounds so basic, but like, what's the customer experience we want our customer to have, whether it be CPG brand to a retailer, which they would call customer, or, you know, retailer to end customer, and then, and then working back from that and saying, Okay, if we know that the customer is shopping in new in different ways. In fact, most people that we know don't even know the word agentic. They just know they've got, you know, an app. So, they're shopping in new in different ways. I want my product in front of them, or I want the relationship with them, therefore, what's going to have to change, and how I do business, and that conversation normally might have taken months and years. It's going to happen in weeks and months. So, I think that's the thing that you know, as you're a businessperson for marketing, I normally would have done search engine optimization and whatnot like that changed, like, already, like, it's so how do I want to engage? What I need to shift? Do I need to upskill my staff? Do I need different types of people or new tools? Like, you know, you start thinking about all that. So, you can just take a how do I want the customer experience or engagement to work? What do I need to do different? How. Do I change it, to make it work, and then what are our actions to take it? You know what? I mean? Like, if you work backwards, instead of getting so enamored with the tools, or, like, large language models, or, you know, I mean, I could go on those, let's focus on the customer and then solve problems on their behalf.

Wendy L. 23:32

Yeah, you know. And that's such an important approach to anything, right? You know, you're trying to figure out how you should lay out a planogram. That's very old world these days. But you know what? You know? Who is the customer? We were one of our retail clients just this week, and they were showing us new innovation and some of the things they were testing and localization, all of this stuff. And so, we were literally walking through the store with them, with a few people, and I said to them, okay, tell me who this person is that you're trying to attract with this. Tell me who, who she, he is, as they walk down this aisle. And what are they doing? What's What are they trying to solve? And so, it is exactly what you were saying. What is that? Who are they, and what's the experience, and what are they coming with? We keep; I keep pointing to my hand. What are they coming with? What knowledge do they have, and what are they trying to get done today in the physical space? Or, you know, it's not even physical or digital, right, because we're already all wired for all of those things as we as we know,

Justin H. 24:34

you mentioned planogram, so I'll go there. So, like, you know, some customers, global brands that we work with. So, their planogram is, like, you know, here's the set for all 80 stores in this geography, which is not, you know, conducive to meeting the customer, where they are and who shops the store. So, like, but okay, so let's work back from that. So, I want to do a better job of selling more product and store. It makes the retailer more money, driving more volume, right on the on the brand. On, okay, so I need better information to kind of dictate or say what the planogram should be by store. Okay, so now I'm working back from that, and then the solve for that may not just be data. It could be a like a traditional AI or machine or just analytic. Problem may not be generative AI or agentic, so, you know, but taking the experience of the customer, the opportunity, and working back from that and then solving it, versus getting so enamored with the tool, the platform, the model, the whatever first, let's think about the customer and not forget the put them at the center.

Wendy L. 25:37

Yeah, well, you know us is the shopper in the room. You know, in the simplest and most complicated way, and when it makes your head, when it makes your head hurt.

Wendy L. 27:36

So, yeah, so, so, lots to think about, but it feels like, you know, the adaptation and the willingness to discuss and getting it beyond the discussion and beyond, as you say IT, to it every part of the organization, and then all these organizations that are changing, whether there's, you know, we can talk about retail shifts these days, even your company, you know, you know, thinking about who's in the house still big retailers who are thinking, Who do we need anymore? Or who can we should we have in the house? You know, brands. I mean, there's so much of that change going on, which is so interesting all the while, you know, the consumer is sitting there saying, what are you guys’ nuts? You can't get my product on my shelf at the price I want. Thank you very much. I'm going to tell you a little gossipy thing. I was stunned this week for public consumption. I was stunned that in walking stores with a couple of us with some of our, you know, CPG clients, we went into an Aldi. There were people CPG companies where they're either chief customer or customer officer, whatever insights, analytics person, had not been into an Aldi, and I go, like, here I am doing my Munch screen. How is that possible? It's just stunning to me.

Justin H. 26:59

Anyway, I'll tell you before we go meet with we have, let's just say, retailers, some of whom we haven't worked with in the past that we do now, or brands that, are you, large brands that you just are so new to tech that they're just getting going with, like Cloud or whatnot. I mean, and our team, the first thing we do is get out in the market. Yes, go to stores, not just their stores, their competitor stores, the go look at the same product, you know, on shelf in different locations. Like it instantly creates, I'd say, what we call an earned trust moment with the customer, but also, like when we're with them, but we can instantly relate, because most of us came out of the industry. So, you know, it seems so 101, and I, I'm shocked, and it still happens, even people that I know, you know, be like, have you even been in a store of that customer? Even though we're going to meet them right now, it's like, come on, exactly.

Wendy L. 27:58

And I And anyway, so as we think about our future here and yours too. But as we discuss, I mean, I think about things that start to open up for me, that I say to people, I worry about the lack of that, not worry. But I see, you know people, you've been buried in your data and your bright shinnies, get out and see what's going on, because maybe it's not you think your competition looks like you, but actually, if it's competition for dollars in the wallet, it may not look like you. So, I think about all of that. I think about innovation, not just, you know, in, I mean, in product, real innovation, not just iterative, because things are moving so fast and because, to your point, shoppers are exposed to so much, if they choose to be and that level. And so, we're finding in our work beyond our, How America Shops® research our, you know, retail innovation work, you know, getting people to think differently by looking as you do in the market, that workshopping around what innovation really looks like and challenging the old world. You know, this is, this is what value or quality looks like. And you're going, you people don't have a clue, you know,

put your shopper hat on, take your take your executive hat on, and get a and then, you know, how do you think about innovating products, services, solutions and different kinds of ways? So, I'm quite excited about that. You know, I know

Justin H. 29:21

we did. We didn't spend any time on innovation today, but it's, it has been, it is back top of mind for most companies and all kinds of different forms and fashions, from formulation to packaging to, you know, should we acquire versus build? I mean, like there's just, there is a lot of interest there and an excitement, quite frankly. And also, what's the customer experience in store? Should we be delivering from store? Should we, you know, destination experience in store? There's a lot of really great conversations we're in the middle of on that, and it's, it's definitely, I would say we didn't talk about that. But, like, probably one of the top, top. Both things going on in our industry right now, yeah, yeah. Well, and just last, because we always run out of time, but we'll continue the conversation as always before year end.

Wendy L. 30:02

now, yeah, yeah. Well, and just last because we always run out of time, but we'll continue the conversation as always before year end. You know, when you think about we've got NRF coming up, National Retail Federation, you know, the big show, and which always sort of feels like it kicks off the year for most of us in New York City, you're a very heavily engaged in that we show up and be guide and see what's going on. What are you? What are you thinking for that? What are the big themes? What are you, you know, what are you expecting out of that as we kick off the year? I

Justin H. 30:33

I mean, last year, I think I should, I might have said this on a previous podcast, you know, I walked in the door and expected to see generative AI, you know, all over there's no question that agentic, you know, it might have been tear down the generative word and put agentic up for a lot of a lot of companies. It's certainly top of mind there will there the transformation and then like areas we talked about earlier will be top of mind, you know, around search, discoverability and new ways of doing that. I believe, not, not only with our I know with our focus and others, will be a big focus on showing what's real. Like, don't just talk to me about the tech like, or the capability, or the platform or the store. Like, show it to me. Like, give me because, because I was looking at some numbers before today, and the numbers I pulled from McKinsey were more than 80% of you know, organizations in our industries here have done some sort of pilot with generative AI, but only about 95% of those have said there's anything that's material that's really driven, like, earnings change and so, you know, like, that's good, so a lot of efficiency. So how do we take this capability, or these capabilities, and lever those up into growth and innovation? And I think that will be really interesting. I do go into earnings and or, sorry, the shopping season. Think there's a lot of good energy, and that should come out. And then that event, I think it will be well attended, and there'll be companies are looking for. I'll just give me what might be coming one day, but show me what's real now so we can go and execute.

Wendy L. 32:16

Yeah, I think that's from a consumer, consumer, shopper, and business standpoint, I feel like it's that innovation meets pragmatism. You know, investment meets pragmatism, yeah. And I think we see a lot in those sort of things that we're doing. So as always. I'm sure there are 27,000 other topics we did not finish. But anyway, that's enough of us. So thank you, as always, my dear. Is there one parting bonne mot, for our audience that you say between now and December? You

Justin H. 32:49

you know, I said this a couple years ago at the Emerson Industry Days, and I was thinking about it when we were preparing for today, but I still think, man, what an exciting time to be in our industry.

Justin H. 35:59

I said it at that time, because it was the early days of, you know, a lot of the new interest in generative AI, but in a lot of the new tech that was going into stores and E commerce. But gosh, I mean, just when you think it, it's kind of going to get kind of on to the next thing, it's just, there's just so much energy around the industry, these industries right now, a lot of interest, a lot of potential for growth, and, like you said, innovation, which we've got to talk about it on a future episode. And I think it's just an exciting time to be our industry.

Wendy L. 33:30

Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm with you. And always in times of chaos, you start to see, you know, people step up and say, oh, there's a lesson for us. So hopefully all those listening see Yeah, it's an opportunity for all of us, as we, as we come into fourth quarter, spooky, spooky, but happy holiday season. So thank you, as always, my partner in all things crime and other things, and I look forward to seeing you very soon in the future, as in person, not just through your agent. You're you, my agent of all technology. That's right.

Justin H. 34:06

Hey, I always appreciate that you put these together. And I always love our conversations. And I, what I really appreciate is you're taking, you know, concepts and ideas and bringing them to life for the retailers that listen, the brands that listen and for those that are out shopping. So, I appreciate that.

Wendy L. 34:23

Thank you, my dear, and we will see you in the future.