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Hello and welcome to Salesforce 
connections. 

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I'm Alex when the retail podcast
I'm here with Shirley from 

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PacSun CIO incredibly privileged
to be with cherlene in a lot of 

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the international listeners may 
not know of PacSun. 

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But when we get to the area 
where we unpack, what what has 

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been going on Paxson the whole 
gen Z Focus. 

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The whole bringing Vibrance to a
new segment for a 40 year old 

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company. 
Is that right out? 

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I do this back son. 
Yeah. 

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He sells some 40, something 
else, it's not a new company but

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all of the Technologies and 
experiences that you run. 

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But before all of that, what 
would be really useful share 

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any, we could look at, maybe you
as a person. 

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A lot of the times when I'm with
great minds and female or lead 

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us, I think I always asked if 
she could sort of go back in 

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time to the early or younger, 
you, what sort of advice or what

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would you do different or what 
advice would you give Yourself? 

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Yeah, it's a good question. 
First of all, thank you for 

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having me and it's my pleasure 
to be here. 

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So sharing going back to my 
time, my whole life, I'm always 

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being technology. 
So it's my passion, I studied 

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computer science. 
I my entire career is in the 

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internet information technology 
and I've been dedicating my most

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of my career to the retail 
industry. 

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And so one of the vice is just 
keep up with the water and 

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Technology. 
I mean it's a fantastic Iraq. 

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It's a faster growing that 
anybody can imagine so my 

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devices keeping their own. 
Yeah. 

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Did you stop from your 
technology Trend? 

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Because obviously being see I am
now having all of your different

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various parts of Technology. 
Was that one part that you 

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started off in. 
I started as a developer, okay? 

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Just saw as a developer 
developer back in the Mainframe 

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stage and then I experienced all
the Technology, different eras, 

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write it from Mainframe to 
client the server, and to cloud,

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and now to Ai and GPT. 
So, it's being a fantastic 

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journey to think I'm jumping 
around a bit. 

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Do you think that's why you've 
been so effective at finding 

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these Trends in technology and 
keeping PacSun in line with 

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that, like social commerce, when
I looked at the list of things 

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you like genuinely Filled from a
retail perspective, you're ahead

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of Of the curve. 
Yeah, right. 

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Andrew pack, verse last year, 
was a great example, right? 

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Because because I talk about how
e-commerce and metal loss are, 

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you know, that's what verse was 
for me. 

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It's a shop. 
Did it all in a neat digital 

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ecosystem? 
But is that do you feel that 

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that's what's helped you? 
The fact that you are a 

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programmer or a techie at heart?
Totally. 

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But first off are the success of
the brand and including 

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technology and our Nation is 
typically is really a team 

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effort to, so he takes the 
entire tax on exact leadership, 

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the entire company. 
You know, everybody work 

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together. 
Not only information technology 

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as well. 
Everywhere else. 

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The entire company has to 
embrace this. 

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This culture of you knows trying
to stay ahead of the curve, 

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right, to embrace Innovation but
myself because I do have this 

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technology background And being 
a developer knowing how systems 

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were developed. 
Yeah. 

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How things are put together. 
Yeah, I really helped me to 

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really understand how each 
application works and it helped 

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me to stay engaged with the best
technology providers such as 

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Salesforce. 
Yeah. 

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So that's how I can bring the 
best technology. 

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The cutting-edge technology to 
apply to business and to support

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Business initiatives and 
strategies, because as a 

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information, technology in the 
merchants merchandising company.

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So we are not like Salesforce or
under 10 companies, we are 

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Merchants, right? 
So, our mission is to sell our 

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faster collection of merchandise
to the customers. 

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Yeah, so knowing sort of inside 
out of Technology, how it works 

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together. 
Really helps me to vet out to 

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the solutions Bring the best fit
and the viable solutions to 

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choose support to the business 
growth. 

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Okay, final question on you and 
then we'll do think if you could

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go back again in time and maybe 
give one piece of advice, 

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obviously. 
Being from what I said on the 

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first question you were talking 
about being a passionate or an 

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expert in your field. 
So technology, know your field 

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because that's going to help you
later in life, what would you 

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what would you like to what 
would you do again? 

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Or are there any things that you
wish We had started or not 

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started anything like yeah. 
So my whole education was 

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focused our computer science. 
I did learn so much about 

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computer science, how Hardware 
software, you know, Network 

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everything work together. 
Yeah, so if I could go back, one

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thing I could have done better. 
Yeah, wish I wish that if I had 

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the opportunity I would try to 
learn other things like Like 

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supply chain accounting Finance?
Yeah. 

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This is just, you know, expanded
the knowledge base. 

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Yeah. 
Because I learned those along 

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the career along my working, so 
that you definitely have to 

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spend a lot of time, you know, 
learning those while you're 

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doing your technology job. 
So right now, like my 

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daughter's, when they go to 
college, I really encourage 

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thongs. 
Doesn't matter what major they 

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end up choosing with what their 
dreams and passions are. 

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But I do encourage them to learn
business. 

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I encourage my daughter to the 
even HR, you know, and business 

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administration, it called me. 
Yeah, sustainability is 

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environmentalists August, you 
thought? 

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Yeah, I know, I'm lucky that I'm
the technology base the right, 

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but it doesn't mean that 
everybody getting into this 

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technology report has to be 
computer science, you know. 

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So you could have studied any 
Majors. 

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I'm Known people like music 
become whole. 

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See ya that right any history. 
Any major but again to stay 

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interested or anything new. 
So I think expand you know, 

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wherever you can learn 
especially that's wonderful. 

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Thank you. 
I think again some to the areas 

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that I'd like to focus on 
Innovation especially now with 

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AI and how a i is everywhere. 
And how because I'm generally 

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for there's a secret to what you
your success. 

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What do you feel or how? 
How have you created that 

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culture of innovation with 
impacts on? 

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And how does that link to the 
other areas of the business, you

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know, like merchandising or 
marketing, how have you been 

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able to bring them on the 
journey in Innovation? 

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Yeah, it's interesting actually.
So I yesterday, I was, I sitting

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in the keynote and it was so 
fascinating. 

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Seeing how Salesforce, I, you 
know, took such a early reaction

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that you have this generative. 
AI Application ready in business

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case already. 
So it was really, really 

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exciting. 
Yeah but then it I my mind went 

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back to when I was in post. 
Read my roommate actually. 

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She studied artificial 
intelligence. 

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Wow, I was like more than 20 
years. 

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Yeah. 
And at that time was she I 

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remember I saw her have like a 
model that draw the lines and 

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then try to create the 
artificial intelligence program.

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So Could then compared to now. 
Yeah, with predictive AI. 

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Now, the Vesta to generative AI.
It's a totally different game. 

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Yeah, and then just with the 
recent genitive generative AIG 

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PT, I think technology has a 
different meaning for business. 

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So, for Pakistan again, it is 
the entire leadership. 

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So we have the culture to 
embrace the new technology on, 

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try to always Ways because our 
customers are gen Z. 

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Yeah. 
Gen C. 

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Customers are very technology 
Savvy. 

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They always adopted the newest 
technology for us, right? 

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So the sooner or later, you all 
where your customers are we are,

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well, would like, if it's social
commerce, you are on Tick-Tock 

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or exactly exact cause our 
customers aren't he'd call we 

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quickly. 
Grow more than 2 million 

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followers on I noticed. 
Yeah, right. 

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So and week in a coma sales as 
well, right? 

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Do during 2020 or something went
up. 

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Yeah it's unbelievable. 
So so we try to Dedicated devote

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a lot of our efforts toward the 
social media because that's 

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where our customers are. 
Yeah. 

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Right so we try to really 
present any. 

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We started accepting the digital
currency? 

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Yeah. 
Back in 2021. 

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So we were one of I think we 
were the first retail. 

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Quite did you accept? 
We use a third party. 

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D. 
OK, and then that's their party.

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Accepts more than 30, digital 
currency expanding the 

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integration was easy. 
So, that's another thing that I 

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try to share with everyone. 
Yeah. 

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That it, you don't have to start
from scratch. 

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Yeah. 
We'll have to create your 

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digital wallet. 
Yeah. 

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Take the Financial Risk. 
Let's say, you know that, oh my 

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gosh. 
The digital currency journey 

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goes. 
Yeah, I hate up and down and 

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your CFO won't feel comfortable 
if you ask an expert. 

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But so, what we actually chose 
is that, we engaged your third 

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part. 
Yeah. 

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The parts. 
Our party has everything 

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connected. 
And I didn't know until we 

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started that it needs approval 
validation, through the 

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government. 
So they have done everything. 

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So for me, it's a quick 
connection and in a mood 

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immediately so that we don't 
take any risks, we don't have to

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prepare like for six months. 
So those kind of things really 

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Really really Empower us to get 
to this connection with the 

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customer. 
So we want to show our customers

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that we know wherever we see 
their desired, increasing desire

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of approaching to digital 
currency. 

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And here we are. 
We offer you. 

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We truly listened to love and 
then we offered, is outside 1/4 

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or sometimes, like, I mean, the 
whole sales force being customer

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obsessed, right? 
It feels like I have to say 

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this. 
You're one of the few technology

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people that it's customer up. 
S and being able to bring that 

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to Market. 
Yes. 

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And I think that's the main 
like, especially with AI. 

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How did you bring a? 
I mean, a lot of people say ml 

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or predictive and they try and 
dress that up as AI, but just 

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focusing in on your customers, 
your gen Z customers. 

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How are you serving them? 
How are you, what's the data 

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points that using how, how do 
you know what they want? 

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Yeah, that's a good question. 
So I think the recent years so 

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Salesforce have this data Cloud.
So we also put together Er, a 

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customer data Cloud that you 
Aggregate and orchestrate, all 

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the customer Centric data. 
So there you really understand 

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your customers better, their 
behavior, their shopping 

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Behavior, their reaction, and 
all the marketing Outreach 

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etcetera. 
So you can truly tailor your 

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messages that when you try to 
engage with your customers. 

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So all those kind of analytics, 
Rai Powered. 

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So it has the predictive 
capability, but, you know, now 

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we have just leapfrogged it to 
the next level of AI, which is 

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generated, right. 
So the generative AI helps you 

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to engage with the customers. 
And so I was really excited that

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while I was looking for AI 
Solutions, such as to automate, 

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the item description attribution
based on the the the The 

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merchandise photo because we 
design and we have things on 

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your website we cannot yet. 
Okay. 

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I'm waiting for our cell phones.
Yeah I was causing some startup 

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companies who specialize in that
area. 

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Yeah. 
So you have the merchandise 

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photos on the model, you know, 
on the display and then the AI 

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can also determine based on 
material the style and generate 

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the description and attribution.
So I was talking to The one, 

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just a month ago. 
Yeah. 

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But all of a sudden today and I 
was looking for. 

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Okay so somebody started that 
that AI initiative got and I was

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wondering what about generated 
now. 

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It's a totally different game. 
What are you doing? 

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So today huge surprise it that 
to Keynote was tailored to 

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answer my questions. 
Yeah here you go. 

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So sales words are already put 
that in place so that we saw 

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that 8U the AI generated and 
Yuri. 

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Review and approve it. 
Yeah. 

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That the the important piece is 
that