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Virtual Conference Recap BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | October 13, 2025

Activating Learning in the Age of AI: Practical Approaches and Tools That Make an Impact

As companies rush to integrate AI tools into daily workflows, a challenge has emerged: how to make the technology feel less like a threat and more like a skill everyone can master. Across industries, from tech to media, employers are rolling out training programs that make AI literacy fundamental and fully integrated.At biotech firm Genentech, every employee receives training in foundational AI principles, ethics, and responsibility. The company encourages staff to experiment with tools in sandbox environments, supported by live sessions and peer learning where colleagues can show off what they’ve built or learned. They’ve even developed internal “tech geniuses” who act as one-on-one tutors.“We want to make sure everyone’s got the same starting place, but also room to experiment and explore in such a way that they want to learn more and be more advanced in their capabilities,” said Heidi Schisel, Genentech’s VP of people and culture, during an executive panel discussion at From Day One’s August virtual conference. At Aspen Dental, the company appointed a head of artificial intelligence to its IT team and made AI training mandatory. But not everyone was immediately enthusiastic. Right away, employees were worried about their job security, says Katie Stangel, VP of learning and development. Others feared they’d be seen as “cheating” if they used AI. To normalize the tools, Stangel created a Teams group dedicated to sharing and celebrating responsible AI use. “People are starting to celebrate and call out when they’ve used it, saying, ‘I use ChatGPT to help me with this outline,’ or ‘I used Articulate AI to help me with the design and development of the course.’ We celebrate that,” she said. Panelists spoke about learning in the age of AI during the virtual session (photo by From Day One)Experts say AI literacy develops in stages—from unstructured experimentation to true automation and augmentation of work. Leaders, especially, often try to skip steps, said Amelia Rosenman, director of programs at the Experience Institute, but “learn out loud” cultures are key if adoption is to be company-wide. “If the leader isn’t showing that they’re making mistakes, or that they haven’t figured out all of the answers, then everyone feels that they should have it all figured out by now,” she said. “Share both your successes and your failures. That’s what creates that safe environment, that risk-free sandbox.”No one needs to be an expert yet, says David Wentworth, VP of talent at frontline learning management platform Schoox. “Let’s move past that and focus on results: What are we trying to do? Always tie it to real problems and real outcomes,” he said. The good news is, many companies already have standard operating procedures and ethics guidelines they can apply right away to get AI training up and running. “Don’t think that you have to start a whole new paradigm about how to approach this thing,” Wentworth said. “You’re probably 60, 70, or 80% of the way there. Just tweak it a bit to fit your current needs.”At multimedia company Scripps, AI tools are helping new reporters develop their skills faster. “Human coaches are amazing, but there’s something about an AI mentor that’s completely nonjudgmental,” said Ginger Summers, senior director of L&D. Their AI tool gives feedback on drafts, helping reporters think critically about sourcing and permissions, without having to tap their peers. About 20% of newsroom employees now use the tool one to two hours per day, saving roughly 20 minutes of work each time. “They’re still learning to use it,” Summers said, “but the time savings are amazing.”This is an excellent example of a successful roll-out of AI as a learning and development tool.  Ultimately, said Rosenman, companies must be clear about why they’re implementing AI, and the results they’re achieving. If employees fear that AI is threatening their jobs, panic will quickly spread.“There’s so much opportunity for the smartest, most creative minds in media to eliminate the drag that keeps them from doing the work they do,” read a late-summer edition of the business newsletter Feed Me. “This instinct, too often, is to hire a COO, a CTO, a chief of staff, or a small army of ops staff, but if you develop prompt engineering skills, commit time to investing in these tools, you can replace huge chunks of that infrastructure and stay small, fast, and creative.”While some companies may be looking for ways to cut their workforces in half, many companies want to become more efficient without hiring anyone new or expand expertise more quickly, said Rosenman. When employees know that, the message shifts from existential threat to helpful teammate.Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is an independent journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about business and the world of work. Her work has appeared in the Economist, the BBC, The Washington Post, Inc., and Business Insider, among others. She is the recipient of a Virginia Press Association award for business and financial journalism. She is the host of How to Be Anything, the podcast about people with unusual jobs.(Photo by gorodenkoff/iStock)

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Feature BY Lisa Lacy | October 08, 2025

Meet the AI Shopping Agents That Are Rewriting Retail Marketing

As the world waited with bated breath for Apple to release details about its 17th iPhone, the New York Times posed an intriguing question: What comes after the smartphone?Spoiler alert: The answer varies, but it could be smart glasses or a smart watch or maybe an ambient computer in another form.At the center of this shift are AI agents, the next generation of virtual assistants, which some of the best and brightest minds in tech believe will know us better than we know ourselves. Eventually.They’re already starting to emerge from the retailers and tech companies we already know with a focus on shopping. And the potential is far greater, which signals big shifts for consumers, brands and retailers. First, the players in this space will have to overcome fairly massive skepticism. But, once they do, and experts think they will, they will become the target of all future brand messaging.Here’s what you need to know about them now:What is an AI shopping agent?Amazon users can ask Rufus questions about products and services (image via Amazon)AI shopping agents are virtual assistants that help consumers find, compare and purchase products or services.According to a report from software company Salesforce, agents can also add items to carts and assist with checkout, although it’s still very early days for this functionality.Depending who you ask, examples include Amazon’s Rufus and Walmart’s Sparky, as well as generative AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini.What’s the latest with shopping agents?A July 2025 study from market research firm YouGov found 43% of respondents had heard of AI shopping agents, but only 14% had used one. Among those who have tried them out, 44% said they asked product questions, while 41% used them to find products and 34% sought help with pricing.But there are signs of consumer interest: 22% said they’re willing to give AI shopping assistants a shot—mostly for finding the best deals (67%), comparing similar products (56%) and getting product information (55%).What problems do shopping agents solve?In traditional e-commerce, consumers type in queries and are served product results and ads. But on a site like Amazon, which has 600 million listings by some estimates, results can go on and on. This infinite shelf space is a double-edged sword. Yes, it enables shoppers to hunt for the exact right item at any given moment. But they have to do a lot of scrolling and research first. And this is amplified with each additional site included in the shopping journey.The main pitch for shopping agents is this: They do the research for you—and return a handful of carefully curated options.That’s according to Melissa Bridgeford, CEO of Wizard, a startup building an AI shopping agent slated to launch in then first quarter of 2026, who called the experience “kind of like the anti-search.”Here, the agent does the heavy lifting in the discovery phase, researching factors like prices, shipping speed and reviews, and it can do so a lot faster than human shoppers. “It can aggregate so much more information from a wider variety of sources than we might be able to aggregate ourselves,” added Kiri Masters, an analyst and podcaster focused on retail media. Plus, fraudulent and counterfeit goods have become an increasing problem for online marketplaces. Amazon disclosed it removed 15 million counterfeit products in 2024 alone—and that’s just one example. Shopping agents can at least theoretically cut through this noise and help consumers make more confident purchases.“Consumers fear getting things wrong. A bad fit, a waste of money, fake reviews, all that stuff,” said Jason Alan Snyder, chief AI officer at advertising giant IPG and co-founder of AI data startup SuperTruth. “[An agent] promises certainty across references, reviews, product data, content and your past preferences.” What is driving this shift?At the International Consumer Electronics Show in 2016, appliance brand Whirlpool teamed up with Amazon to announce a smart washing machine that could reorder laundry supplies when they were running low. It reportedly came with a price tag of $1,399, or about $1,900 today, according to an inflation calculator from the U.S. Department of Labor.Cost may have been a contributing factor as to why smart appliances like this did not take off in 2016. But it’s also true Americans were simply not yet ready to hand over purchasing decisions to inanimate objects. They’re closer now. Ordering groceries, food delivery or even car rides with strangers are much more common following the pandemic—and related consumer behavior changes. Five years after the pandemic, e-commerce is still growing. According to a recent report, U.S. e-commerce sales hit $1.19 trillion in 2024, which means they have more than doubled since 2019.Shopping agents are also getting a boost thanks to the quick adoption of generative AI. A 2024 Harvard study found more than 39% of Americans between 18 and 64 had used gen AI in the two years following ChatGPT’s launch. By comparison, just 20% had used the internet two years after its debut and it took the same number of people in the U.S. a full three years to give PCs a shot.“The adoption rate on [conversational interfaces] is so steep,” Bridgeford said. “And that really creates tailwinds around the adoption of the entire agent experience.”What challenges exist with shopping agents?According to Salesforce, shopping agents provide personalized responses and recommendations, which yield a better experience, as well as increased conversion rates and higher average order value. Yet YouGov found 56% of Americans have no interest in using them—and 41% don’t trust them. Like the early days of e-commerce, Masters noted consumers are still wary of handing over their payment information to agents.Another big and growing problem is fraud. “These AI tools in general allow fraudsters to do everything better, faster, cheaper than they already do. So, identity theft, return fraud–all the permutations of fraud that we have available–can scale much faster,” Masters said. But YouGov remains optimistic. Per the report, the key to driving adoption is proving agents add value, like finding the best price and offering trustworthy information about the products in question.How will shopping agents evolve?As time goes on, agents will get to know you and your shopping habits better and will become more proactive.“It’s the agent that knows you better than you know yourself, that remembers things for you, that’s able to suggest things,” Bridgeford said. “It knows the brands you like. It knows the price points you feel comfortable with. It knows the size of your household, so when you’re in small New York apartments, it’s not suggesting some massive coffeemaker.”And, of course, shopping is only the beginning. Booking flights, hotels and restaurants is a natural extension. So is recommending credit cards, loans and investments or even helping you choose the lab tests, supplements and wearables most relevant to your biomarker data, Snyder said. “What’s really cool with agents is they can negotiate,” he said. “So you can have your shopping agent bargain with a seller’s agent. Everything becomes like a Moroccan marketplace.”Think: negotiating better credit terms on your behalf—or even weeding through potential matches on dating apps. “You could have matches based on circadian rhythm compatibility,” Snyder said. “That sounds crazy, but that’s a morning person or that’s a night owl.”What should marketers know about shopping assistants?That negotiation component has profound implications for brands and marketers.When agents become the intermediary between consumers and brands/retailers, advertising as we know it won’t work anymore. For Snyder, that means eventually agents will only allow brands to reach you if they pay a fair price for your attention and data.“It’s future-proofing yourself against manipulation,” he said. “Right now, ads and algorithms are constantly pushing products at you, but an agent would act for you and would filter out all that manipulative content.”Ultimately, brands will have to adjust messaging to appeal to agents as their recommendations will become the new sponsored search results. “Brands need to optimize for machine readability and agent trust,” Snyder added. “That means structured data provenance, ethical sourcing, health compatibility, ethical compatibility, all of those things.”This shift to agents has huge implications for online marketing more broadly, too.“My big existential question for retailers is if human eyeballs are not going to your website or app anymore because an agent is doing it for them, what happens to retail media? What happens to onsite sponsored product ads?” Masters asked. “You’re not going to see those ads. So that whole onsite retail media business model is threatened and, to some degree, what's called offsite retail media is threatened as well.”Her advice to retailers is to really think about what distinguishes them from their competitors—and to invest in loyalty programs as a “moat.”For Snyder, it will be the end of the marketing funnel, but consumer experience remains. That means brands and marketers will be wise to focus on brand communities, content ecosystems, and live events.Lisa Lacy is a freelance writer based in Atlanta. She was formerly ADWEEK's commerce editor, focusing on retail and the growing reach of Amazon. She has covered marketing and technology for more than a decade for publications like TechCrunch, CMO.com, VentureBeat, The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires, ClickZ and Search Engine Watch.(Photo by guoya/iStock)

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What Our Attendees are Saying

Jordan Baker(Attendee) profile picture

“The panels were phenomenal. The breakout sessions were incredibly insightful. I got the opportunity to speak with countless HR leaders who are dedicated to improving people’s lives. I walked away feeling excited about my own future in the business world, knowing that many of today’s people leaders are striving for a more diverse, engaged, and inclusive workforce.”

– Jordan Baker, Emplify
Desiree Booker(Attendee) profile picture

“Thank you, From Day One, for such an important conversation on diversity and inclusion, employee engagement and social impact.”

– Desiree Booker, ColorVizion Lab
Kim Vu(Attendee) profile picture

“Timely and much needed convo about the importance of removing the stigma and providing accessible mental health resources for all employees.”

– Kim Vu, Remitly
Florangela Davila(Attendee) profile picture

“Great discussion about leadership, accountability, transparency and equity. Thanks for having me, From Day One.”

– Florangela Davila, KNKX 88.5 FM
Cory Hewett(Attendee) profile picture

“De-stigmatizing mental health illnesses, engaging stakeholders, arriving at mutually defined definitions for equity, and preventing burnout—these are important topics that I’m delighted are being discussed at the From Day One conference.”

– Cory Hewett, Gimme Vending Inc.
Trisha Stezzi(Attendee) profile picture

“Thank you for bringing speakers and influencers into one space so we can all continue our work scaling up the impact we make in our organizations and in the world!”

– Trisha Stezzi, Significance LLC
Vivian Greentree(Attendee) profile picture

“From Day One provided a full day of phenomenal learning opportunities and best practices in creating & nurturing corporate values while building purposeful relationships with employees, clients, & communities.”

– Vivian Greentree, Fiserv
Chip Maxwell(Attendee) profile picture

“We always enjoy and are impressed by your events, and this was no exception.”

– Chip Maxwell, Emplify
Katy Romero(Attendee) profile picture

“We really enjoyed the event yesterday— such an engaged group of attendees and the content was excellent. I'm feeling great about our decision to partner with FD1 this year.”

– Katy Romero, One Medical
Kayleen Perkins(Attendee) profile picture

“The From Day One Conference in Seattle was filled with people who want to make a positive impact in their company, and build an inclusive culture around diversity and inclusion. Thank you to all the panelists and speakers for sharing their expertise and insights. I'm looking forward to next year's event!”

– Kayleen Perkins, Seattle Children's
Michaela Ayers(Attendee) profile picture

“I had the pleasure of attending From Day One. My favorite session, Getting Bias Out of Our Systems, was such a powerful conversation between local thought leaders.”

– Michaela Ayers, Nourish Events
Sarah J. Rodehorst(Attendee) profile picture

“Inspiring speakers and powerful conversations. Loved meeting so many talented people driving change in their organizations. Thank you From Day One! I look forward to next year’s event!”

– Sarah J. Rodehorst, ePerkz
Angela Prater(Attendee) profile picture

“I had the distinct pleasure of attending From Day One Seattle. The Getting Bias Out of Our Systems discussion was inspirational and eye-opening.”

– Angela Prater, Confluence Health
Joel Stupka(Attendee) profile picture

“From Day One did an amazing job of providing an exceptional experience for both the attendees and vendors. I mean, we had whale sharks and giant manta rays gracefully swimming by on the other side of the hall from our booth!”

– Joel Stupka, SkillCycle
Alexis Hauk(Attendee) profile picture

“Last week I had the honor of moderating a panel on healthy work environments at the From Day One conference in Atlanta. I was so inspired by what these experts had to say about the timely and important topics of mental health in the workplace and the value of nurturing a culture of psychological safety.”

– Alexis Hauk, Emory University