AI in retail isn’t just about chatbots and virtual try-ons. The real shift is happening behind the scenes: how products surface in search, how inventory moves through supply chains, how quickly engineers ship code, how retailers react to behavior in real time.
Macy’s is taking what Murali Murugan, their senior director of engineering, calls an “AI-first” approach. That doesn’t mean sprinkling intelligence on existing workflows. It means redesigning how decisions get made so the business moves faster and every interaction feels more relevant by default.
The company started with narrow, measurable wins — search recommendations and customer engagement tools that showed clear conversion gains. “Once we established the quick wins, scaling was a business decision, not a technology debate anymore,” Murugan says. That early momentum bought organizational buy-in.
Now Macy’s is pushing into conversational commerce with Ask Macy’s. It’s meant to work like a personal stylist, not a search bar. Tell it what you need — a prom dress, vacation clothes, a last-minute outfit — and it returns curated suggestions informed by your purchase history and preferences.
But the company doesn’t see AI replacing human judgment. It’s an invisible layer that augments it. The long-term play is retail that feels seamless and adaptive, powered by systems customers never even notice. Murugan frames it as continuous improvement: learning from mistakes, adapting to new tech standards, getting timing right. Those small gains compound.
