• by Erin Everhart , Staff Writer, 10 hours ago

I honed my marketing chops at The Home Depot. I spent six years of my life in an orange apron. Six years reflighting media, plussing up paid search, and trying to predict the exact week spring will arrive so we can flip end caps from snow blowers to mulch. 

If you've ever worked retail, you know brand loyalty doesn't end when you clock out for the last time. Brand loyalty like that is tattooed on you.

So the fact that I'm sitting here, having a perfectly civilized conversation with today's guest, is honestly a small miracle. He's Lowe's. He’s my sworn enemy. He's the vest to my apron. The blue to my orange. And even though I’ve been out of the home improvement game for six years, I still feel like I’m going to get caught when I walk into that big blue box store. Old habits die hard.

But here's the thing about rivalries: The good ones make you pay attention to the other side. And I have to hand it to Lowe's: what they're building right now, especially in AI, deserves respect. 

Everyone is talking about AI. Every panel, every keynote, and every LinkedIn post has a suspiciously confident hot take. We're exhausted by it, but we can’t stop talking about it because there's just so much still unfolding, too many new use cases showing up every single week. And I hate to break it to you, but if you're still only using AI to make your mean email sound nice, you’re behind. Big time.

The real conversation isn't about whether to use AI. It's about how to get started. Are no legacy systems weighing you down? Do you have decades of process and infrastructure you can’t just rip out and rebuild overnight? Or are you somewhere in the middle?

How do you align strategy, product and partnerships while bringing a legacy organization along for the ride? We sat down with Lowe’s Senior Director of AI, Sravan Vadigepalli to find out.

Listen to the full episode here.