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Rajlakshmi
Shankaran
Chief Merchandising Officer
Retail Scale
Rajlakshmi (Raj) Shankaran is the Founder and Chief Merchandising Officer of Retail S.C.A.L.E., and one of the few retail operators who has sat at the table where agentic commerce decisions are actually made. With nearly two decades scaling $1B+ omnichannel P&Ls at Fortune 1 Walmart and PE-backed Circana, Raj brings a perspective missing from most AI product conversations: what it actually takes to win a retail shopper, and why the most sophisticated AI products keep losing at the point of sale. At Walmart, her category bets consistently moved the needle at scale — from introducing Chromebooks to mass retail and reaching $112M in 18 months, to building the digital wireless business that drove $550M in activation sales and accounted for more than 20% of Walmart's enterprise eCommerce profitability. At Circana, she steered retail and brand-centric product strategy across a $500M+ global portfolio through the complex post-merger integration of IRI and NPD.
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15 April 2026 09:45 - 10:30
Panel:The ROI hunger games: Proving AI’s value in 2026
The honeymoon is over. After two years of rapid experimentation and "AI-first" hype, the enterprise has entered a period of brutal recalibration. In 2026, Product Managers are no longer asked if their AI works—they are asked how much it earns. With 80% of AI projects failing to scale and CFOs demanding 12-month payback periods, the pressure to move from "viral demos" to "durable ROI" has never been higher. This panel brings together battle-hardened product leaders to discuss the "Science of the Practical." We will dive into the new 2026 KPI framework: moving beyond model accuracy to measure operational lift, revenue velocity, and the mitigation of "Bias Debt." Whether you are fighting for next year’s budget or trying to rescue a pilot from "purgatory," join us to learn how the most successful AI products are surviving the Hunger Games by prioritizing profit over pixels and execution over expectations.