EXCLUSIVE Q&A: How Kendra Scott uses AI to personalize gifting, shopping
Kendra Scott is humanizing its omnichannel gifting and shopping experience at scale with artificial intelligence.
Chain Store Age recently spoke with Kamanasish Kundu, senior VP, head of digital & e-commerce at Kendra Scott, about how the jewelry brand leverages artificial intelligence to personalize its entire omnichannel shopping journey, both for specific gift-giving occasions such as Mother’s Day and year-round.
What issues was Kendra Scott having with customer experience?
The first challenge we had when I joined Kendra Scott in January 2023 was data. We didn't have a clear view of our customer funnel and there was no foundation for testing, targeting or personalization.
In response, we brought in experts, cleaned the data, mapped the full customer journey, and then we uncovered the friction points that were impacting customer conversion and experience.
That clarity empowered us to shift from making opinion-based customer experience decisions to a structured, insight-driven testing strategy. I also discovered that while we had invested millions of dollars in best-in-class analytics and testing tools over the years, usage was shockingly low because we didn't have the right people.
How and why did Kendra Scott pursue AI-based personalization?
I created a new function of analytics and personalization, built cross-functional steering and operating committees, and introduced governance change to ensure that testing actually translates to learning, and that has been a growth engine for the business over the last couple of years.
From there, we treated personalization like product development. First, we introduced one-to-one personalization, leveraging third-party machine learning or predictive AI models which look at 500 behavioral data points per second to serve the right message to the right customer at the right time to build the connection.
Secondly, we focused on segmented personalization. We stood up custom gift different propensity models coupled with rapid A/B testing experimentation. We also got into agentic personalization, where we launched a personal shopping assistant offering guided a shopping experience to our customers in 2024 before heading into the holidays.
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How does Kendra Scott’s AI-based personalization strategy work?
Utilizing agentic AI, Kendra Scott anticipates customer needs and continues to elevate their experience overall. These personalization efforts now provide a 5-to-7% incremental sales increase for the business.
The goal was never personalization for its own sake. It was to humanize AI, make every digital moment feel emotionally intelligent, and ultimately drive loyalty and joy. That AI personalization strategy sits at the center of Kendra Scott’s three-year business strategy, which has delivered a more than 22% compound annual growth rate and transformed how we show up for customers at every touchpoint.
Our three-year business strategy is focused on three strategic pillars. One is AI-powered personalization. One is mobile, and one is experiential. We're not selling just jewelry. We're creating moments of joy and building authentic emotional connections online.
If you think about jewelry as a category, it's not a utility. People buy jewelry to mark moments or express their identity or give something meaningful. That's why we are a deeply customer-centric organization. Story-telling, personalization and inspiration must be present at every step of the customer journey, whether that means personalized messaging, AI-enabled shopping, or curated recommendation.
Our customers are also inspired by an amazing in-store experience, and we bring that same emotional energy into our digital channels. Kendra Scott’s digital vision is to build a deeper connection and deliver the most personalized omnichannel experience possible, allowing us to blend physical and digital engagement in a meaningful way.
AI provides the foundation to bridge the gap between the digital and the in-store experiences.
Are there any future plans for your AI-based personalization program?
Kendra Scott has started working on personalized recommendations and this year, we are planning to take it to the next level with hyper-personalized search. Ultimately, we want to get to a state where we have one centralized personalization engine which orchestrates the customer journey across all digital touchpoints.
Also, with agentic AI, I think we will be getting into a world where your AI agent will understand the budget intent of a customer and then interact directly with brands in a digital ecosystem to find, evaluate and even purchase items at desired prices on their behalf.
In this scenario, the website becomes a trusted intelligence layer for machines as well as an emotional experience for humans. Kendra Scott is already building in that direction and investing in stronger technology and a stronger AI foundation.
But we are not going to lose sight of why people buy from us, whether it's for joy, for meaning or for connection. And we strongly believe that the future of e-commerce won't be won by retailers that just deploy AI, but by those who humanize it. The brands that blend technology with trust, will lead the next decade of retail.
