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At the Exceptional Women Alliance, we enable high-level women to mentor each other to enable personal and professional happiness through sisterhood. As the nonprofit organizations founder, chair, and CEO, I am honored to interview and share insights from some of the thought leaders who are part of our peer-to-peer mentoring. This month I introduce to youKarlyn Mattson, an award-winning retail C-suite executive and founder of The Leadership Advisors.She has decades of experience delivering profitable growth, transformative consumer and product experiences, omni-channel and digital transformation, and consumer centric value creation for brands such as Macys, Target, and Amazon. Q: You have a provocative hypothesis that agentic AI could be retails unexpected savior. Can you tell us more? Karlyn Mattson: The real promise of agentic AI isnt just automation. Its the chance to restore the human side of an industry that has quietly lost its creative and strategic edge. Retail has always been shaped by trends and counter-trendsthe existence of two radically opposite movements at the same time. Today, two forces are rising simultaneously: The rapid acceleration of AIand an equally strong need for human connection and creation, analog, and artisanalinfluencing brands, products, and experiences. While they appear to be at odds, I believe they are deeply connected. As retailers explore AI deployment, the opportunity is larger than the efficiency realized by leveraging generative AI. The more powerful opportunity is agentic AI, which can enable the refresh this industry desperately needs, freeing time for strategic and creative innovation. Q: Youve described retail malaise. Whats driving that? Karlyn: Creative and strategic oxygen has been replaced by analytical and operational dependence, evident in the lack of inspiration at so many retailers. Merchants, at their best, are equally left and right-brain professionals. They are hired for their potential to make great choices for the consumerdeciding where to buy more, where to pull back, where to take calculated risks. Instead, many spend their days toggling between versions of the same financial forecast or explaining variances across metrics. It’s not about a lack of great talent but instead frustration with the day-to-day job requirements. Q: How does Agentic AI change the equation? Karlyn: The insights and research that generative AI produces allow for amazing efficiency and synthesis. This is a huge win. The trend identification and product development processes absolutely benefit from this. Agentic systems change the game because they dont just analyze, they act. Within strategic guardrails, these systems continuously learn, rebalance, and adapt, autonomously managing thousands of SKUs across hundreds of locations with a precision that is beyond human capacity. Its intelligence that executes so humans can reclaim time to focus on decisions that shape future strategies and assortments. Q: How does reclaimed time impact retail merchants? Karlyn: It changes their motivation and inspiration. Most merchants I know enter retail to create compelling and differentiated assortments that surpass their competition and excite their consumers through storytelling. And that takes time. Instead of creating another report or refining a projection, merchants can think more strategically about long-term growth, competitive white space, brand positioning, product differentiation, and assortment architecture. The inability to spend time on strategy is one of the biggest tensions in a merchants job satisfaction. Q: Some leaders worry that more automation means less humanity. Is that a risk? Karlyn: I think for retail, it needs to be viewed as a capability amplifier. Retail is grounded in human workits emotional, creative, cultural work. And its also rooted in disciplined strategic work. For example, AI can detect a trend or signal but only a human can decide whether that trend aligns with your brand positioning. AI can optimize inventory flow but it cannot determine to place a big bet on a trend you saw on the streets of London. I believe that AI can strengthen human-centered retail strategy, not weaken it, if led correctly. Q: What does this mean for CEOs and boards? Karlyn: First, this is an operating model decision, not just a technology decision. A lot of money can be wasted if AI is bolted on to legacy systems. Significant workflow re-design is required to accommodate the opportunity of agentic AI. Second, if autonomous systems remove some of the analytical or operational work, how will organizations reinvest that capacity? It should be directed toward that capability amplification discussed earlierdefining growth initiatives, championing creativity and innovation, and developing sharper strategies. Q: What gives you confidence this shift will happen? Karlyn: First, necessitymargin erosion, consumer fragmentation, declining loyaltyretail cannot afford incrementality and mediocrity anymore. Second, the art of retail has quietly diminished over the past several years. The merchant role has shifted from curator to reconciler, from strategist to number cruncher. Agentic AI has the potential to reverse that trajectory. Its use can unleash incredible human-centric worksharper strategy and bolder imagination to reclaim the hearts and minds of consumers craving inspiration and connection. Larraine Segil is founder, chair, and CEO of the Exceptional Women Alliance.
Category:
E-Commerce
Few media brands scream straight quite like Playboy. Since the 1950s, the mens lifestyle magazine has been best known for its photos of nude and scantily clad women (aka Playmates)and, of course, for its iconic bunny mascot. But those whove been paying attention, Playboy has quietly undergone an editorial transformation. Since November, the magazine has relaunched its print edition (previously halted in 2020), started a Substack newsletter blending archival material with original writing, and introduced new Playmates to the world. Its all been under the advice of Phillip Picardi, who was announced on March 11 as Playboys new chief brand officer and editor-in-chief, making him the first openly gay man to lead the brand. Picardi is a media veteran with more than a decade of experience shaping the magazine industry. As the digital editorial director of Teen Vogue, Picardi more than doubled the sites online viewership and gave the brand a new politically progressive direction (a move that landed him on Fast Company‘s list of the 100 most creative people in business in 2017). From there, he founded Condé Nasts queer-focused outlet them and served as editor-in-chief of Out Magazine. What does it mean for a queer man to take the helm of a stereotypically straight institution? Its not as antithetical as it first sounds, considering how far Playboy has come from its primarily pornographic roots. Per its website, the brands mission is to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure via core values of equality, freedom of expression and the idea that pleasure is a fundamental human right. In an interview with ADWEEK, Picardi shared how his own queer identity fits into that inclusive Playboy ethos. Queer rights dont exist without womens rights, Picardi said. These things are connected, and Playboy has always been very engaged with that. Picardis appointment comes shortly after that of David Miller, who left a role at National Geographic to become Playboys president of media and brand. The shake-up in leadership reflects a new era for Playboy, one that still centers sex, but not without acknowledging the culture surrounding it. Just in the past week, the magazine has published deep dives on the hypocrisy surrounding trans pornography, platforming Playmates eager to reclaim their sexuality, and honoring the legacy of Playboys past. Picardi also shared his vision for Playboys future, particularly given the rising conservatism of American culture. Our moment right now is both extremely prudish and extremely pornographic, he told ADWEEK. The idea that we need a publication that is able to explain sexuality as a cultural force, especially as our younger folks are facing a sex recession and loneliness epidemicit felt like the right challenge.
Category:
E-Commerce
Do you know who Jessica Foster is? Neither did I until last week, which is surprising because 1) she has amassed 1 million followers on Instagram after starting her account just a few months ago 2) she is a U.S. Army soldier with a look as wholesome and American as apple pie, and 3) she is a huge Trump supporter. With that trifecta, you could assume she would be a star on Fox News, NewsMax, or the Joe Rogan Experience. But no, she is nowhere to be found on those platformsor any major U.S. media outlet for that matter. And that’s because she is a computer-generated mirage designed by an anonymous operator to funnel conservative men toward an OnlyFans page where “she” sells foot fetish pics. [Images: Jessica Foster/Instagram] I came across Foster while reading the Spanish sports media, who covered the AI character after her account posted fake images of her attending an Inter Miami Major League Soccer White House reception alongside Donald Trump and Lionel Messi (she also has appeared in the oval office alongside Cristiano Ronaldo). The stunt triggered a massive wave of coverage across sports outlets in fútbol-obsessed Spain and Latinamerica, which then expanded to TV, other online publications and national newspapers with huge readership like 20 Minutos. Who, or what, is Jessica Foster? The Instagram profile @jessicaa.foster went live on December 14, 2025. In just three months, the account reached more than a million followers. The recipe for this success was fairly simple: The puppet master behind the screen pumped out a constant stream of content around this fictitious, Trump-loving female soldier and built an entire digital lore by letting followers peek into her daily life. We see Jessica posing in army bunks, frolicking with female soldiers, shoeless at the office, and behind an F-22 Raptor. The feed is packed with high-resolution, completely forged photos of her posing with Trump and politicians like Putin and Zelensky; in one, she’s speaking at the Board of Peace ConferenceDonald Trump’s international body created to mediate the Gaza conflict. She even invaded Greenland, because of course all it takes to conquer a country is a Colgate smile. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] But all this is just bait to pick up right-leaning men straight into adult subscription sites. Under the username @jessicanextdoor, her OnlyFans bio unironically reads: “public servant by day, troublemaker by night i’m new to this don’t be rude please btw i respond to every message but be patient since I’m not a robot haha.” The account pulls in cash primarily by peddling fetish content, specifically foot photography, while farming direct tips from subscribers that can hit over $100 on a single post. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Jessica (@jessicaa.foster) This entire grift operates in direct violation of OnlyFans’ terms of service. The platform’s rules demand that every account must be linked to a verified human being. Any AI generated content, it says, must actually resemble that specific real person and be explicitly tagged with a #AI label. Because of these restrictions, many of these faceless operators are packing up their fake influencers and moving to looser competitor sites like Fanvue. (We sent a request for comment to OnlyFans and will update this article if we hear back.) Over on Instagram, Meta’s policies require that any paid political advertisements prominently disclose the use of AI. For unpaid, organic posts like Foster’s grid, Meta outsources the problem to third-party fact-checkers who can blur, label, or yank the content if they consider it deceptive misinformation. It appears that filtering is not working. Despite successfully duping thousands of users who seemingly left genuine comments of support and affection in her post, the digital illusion wasn’t flawless. Military veterans and commenters in conservative forums like Free Republic spotted the glitches in the rendering. The smoking gun used to debunk her was the name tape on her combat uniform, which displayed her first name (“JESSICA”) instead of the standard military last name. “She acts as a military advisor to the Trump administration on Instagram, but she operates as a foot model on OnlyFans,” says journalist Kat Tenbarge on the left-leaning Courier Youtube channel. [She is] pushing sort of propaganda not just in support of Trump, not just in support of the US military, but it’s also objectifying women in the military.” Tenbarge believes that the Foster account softens and glamorizes and sexualizes this vision of the U.S. military. On the other side of the political spectrum, conservative commentator Ara Rubyan seems to basically agree with Tenbarge. “She was every MAGA bumper sticker rendered in human form, and for her audience, the ‘human’ part was entirely optional […] The Soldier of the Lord was, in the end, just a clever way to sell foot content.” Both are correct in their diagnostic, but they miss the most important point about Jessica Foster. She marks the last national election as the end of reality-anchored campaign news cycles, if such a thing ever existed. Fosters one-million-follower army is the ultimate demonstration that we have reached a predicted and very dangerous era, as the latest generative photo and video AIs have finally shattered our ground truths with perfect synthetic reality indistinguishable from real life. You can even argue that, even without those, we are cooked: Jessica had visible imperfections that were caught by some, but her army of followers didn’t really care much. As Rubyan puts it, “The most dangerous thing about Jessica Foster isnt that shes fake; its how badly a million people needed her to be real.” Indeed. We are not in the post-truth era anymore. This is the “I want to believe” era, and anything that satisfies humans’ existing beliefs and desires will automatically get our brains’ stamp of approval even after learning it is not real. Good night, and good luck, everyone.
Category:
E-Commerce
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