Target taps Lowe’s exec as its first-ever AI chief
Target Corp. has added a new position to its C-suite.
The company named Chandhu Nair as senior VP and its first chief AI officer, bringing greater focus and coordination to AI across the enterprise, the company said. The announcement comes as retailers are investing in AI and working to integrate it into their operations.
Most recently, Nair served as senior VP of stores, data, AI and innovation for Lowe’s Companies. Prior to Lowe’s, which he joined in 2020, Nair was the co-founder and partner of Merkatus Partners, a strategy-consulting firm focused on business strategy and emerging technologies investments services in commerce and retail space. Before that, he co-founder and was a partner at Cognitive Retail. He also spent nearly 10 years at Staples.
“What excites me most is the opportunity to make AI real for the people who experience Target every day,” Nair said in a Q&A on the company’s website. “The most meaningful AI stories won’t be about what happens in a lab. They’ll be about what happens on the front line — how we make shopping easier for a guest, give a team member a better tool, make a business decision with more confidence or bring a new idea to market faster.”
In a related move, Target said that Purvi Shah will move into the role of senior VP of UX (user experience), “reinforcing our belief that human-centered design is essential to creating experiences that feel distinctly Target.” She joined Target in 2022 from Amazon, where she was head of Amazon Design Excellence — company wide.
“This moment gives UX the opportunity to engage more deeply than ever as a key part of the teams building the technology,” Shah stated in the Q&A. “Our role is to shape not only what people see, but the systems and decisions behind it to ensure each experience is as easy, inspiring and valuable as it can be.”
[READ MORE: Former CEO of 7-Eleven joins Target board]
As to why it was important to advance AI and UX together, rather than as separate disciplines, Nair explained that AI expands what technology can understand and do, while UX helps turn those capabilities into something useful.
“Powerful intelligence without a thoughtful experience can create confusion or fragmentation,” he said. “An experience that looks good without the right intelligence underneath it can fall short of what people need. Advancing the capabilities together helps us create experiences that are intelligent, intuitive and useful.”
To read the full Q&A with Nair and Shah, click here.
