The Shift to Intelligence: AI and the Evolution of Retail Media with Grant Steadman

The Shift to Intelligence: AI and the Evolution of Retail Media with Grant Steadman

James Avery sits down with Grant Steadman, retail expert and former President of North America at dunnhumby, to explore the profound impact of Artificial Intelligence and generative shopping on the commerce landscape. Drawing on his extensive 16-year tenure at dunnhumby—the data science pioneer behind Tesco's Clubcard and early loyalty frameworks—Grant offers a rare look at the data-led history of the industry before bridging it directly into the modern era of agentic commerce. They break down exclusive findings from Astra Works AI’s Agentic Commerce Capability Index, outlining how market leaders like Amazon (Rufus) and Walmart (Sparky) are rewriting the rules of consumer discovery. Grant explains why the transition to AI assistants is not an overnight replacement for physical grocery store aisles or traditional e-commerce portals, but a powerful new channel requiring retailers to urgently address the organizational, technical, and change-management challenges of an AI transformation. From moving away from basic keyword-based search to navigating how brand signals are shared across large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, this episode serves as a strategic roadmap for networks aiming to scale their intelligence layers and protect their data moats.

Building From the Inside Out: Scaling a Retail Media Powerhouse with Austin Leonard

James Avery sits down with Austin Leonard, VP and General Manager of DG Media Network, to break down how Dollar General is transforming America’s general store into a retail media juggernaut. With more than 21,000 physical locations deeply embedded in rural and suburban communities, Dollar General reaches a critical shopper base that traditional digital platforms often miss. Austin shares the inside story of building the network from a strong foundation of traditional shopper marketing and offsite tactics to a rapidly growing, omnichannel digital business driven by a massive rollout of same-day delivery. The conversation covers DG Media Network's pioneering first-of-its-kind partnership with The Trade Desk to seamlessly unify onsite and offsite programmatic buying, their major expansion into AI-powered in-store audio with QSIC, and why providing outcome-based measurement and true incrementality is the ultimate key to unlocking national media dollars. Austin challenges the industry's default playbooks, explaining why successful retail networks must ditch copy-paste roadmaps, start directly with customer behavior, and scale specialized tools that protect both the shopper experience and brand yield.

ROAS is the root of all evil: Debunking the ROAS Trap with Andrew Lipsman

James Avery sits down with Andrew Lipsman, independent analyst and former eMarketer principal, to challenge the industry's dangerous obsession with "magical black boxes" and short-term KPIs. Andrew explains why ROAS is a fundamentally flawed metric that often rewards "cookie stuffing" and branded search rather than true business growth, urging brands and retailers to graduate toward incrementality (iROAS) and market share. The conversation dives into the "nightmare" of over-optimization, the cautionary tale of Nike’s recent brand erosion, and why the future of retail media lies in upper-funnel high-quality channels like performance TV and digitized in-store media. Whether you are a retailer building a network or a brand marketer looking to avoid the "AI hand-wave," this episode provides a blunt, data-driven reality check on what actually drives long-term advertising effectiveness.

The Engineering Engine: First-Party Data and the Kevel Acquisition with Paulo Cunha

James Avery sits down with Paulo Cunha [https://www.linkedin.com/in/pcunha/], Kevel’s VP of Product, to explore the historical convergence of data infrastructure and ad tech. Drawing from his journey as the founder of Shift Forward (later Velocity), Paulo recounts the early days of building foundational first-party data tools in Europe and how his team’s expertise in real-time segmentation and forecasting became the backbone of Kevel’s audience product. The conversation dives into the strategic nuances of the European market, the "API-first" mandate, and why the cultural alignment between their two engineering-heavy organizations led to an incredibly successful post-acquisition integration. Paulo also provides a unique lens on GDPR as a competitive advantage and how global retailers can leverage rapid, first-party data activation to outpace traditional marketing cycles and drive higher yield.

Breaking Through the Noise: The Power of In-Store Audio with Sean Cheyney

James Avery welcomes Sean Cheyney [https://www.getqsic.com/post/qsic-appoints-sean-cheyney-to-executive-team-to-drive-global-business-growth], EVP of Global Business Development at QSIC, to discuss the untapped potential of the physical store as a high-performance media channel. Drawing on his deep background at Triad and CitrusAd, Sean explains how modern AI-driven in-store audio is solving legacy pain points by providing closed-loop measurement, incremental ROAS, and hyper-localized creative that can be deployed in minutes. The conversation highlights the "omnichannel" future where audio, digital screens, and on-site media work together to surround the consumer, and Sean makes a bold prediction that 2026 will be the breakout year for retailers globally to integrate audio into their retail media programs