Dive Brief:
- Target appointed Chandhu Nair as its first chief AI officer and SVP, the company said Tuesday. Nair will join the company Aug. 24 after spending more than six years at Lowe’s, most recently as SVP of stores, data, AI and innovation.
- The retailer also promoted Purvi Shah as SVP of user experience, emphasizing in a statement that a close knit relationship between AI and UX technologies will help it “move from insight to action faster, while keeping people at the center of what we build.” Both Nair and Shah will report to Prat Vemana, chief information and product officer, the company said in an email.
- The executive changes reflect CEO Michael Fiddelke’s multiyear turnaround strategy introduced in March to reverse slowing sales. The plan, which included an incremental $2 billion in operational and capital investments in 2026, attempts to revive growth, modernize customer experience and sharpen its brand identity.
Dive Insight:
Target is making AI part of its C-suite, an indication of just how critical the technology is to its operational strategy.
While it attached a broad remit to the new role, tasking Nair with “bringing greater focus and coordination to AI across the enterprise,” the company also zeroed in on a concrete use case: how AI can bolster UX.
The coupling enables Target to flip the enterprise script on implementing AI at a time when companies are still struggling to measure ROI. Rather than seek out productivity or efficiency gains by adding AI capabilities to applications, the AI-UX partnership gives the company’s technology strategy a different shape, one, as Nair said in an interview attached to the press release, that starts with outcomes and focuses on where tech can make the biggest difference.
“That requires what I call radical collaboration,” Shah said in the interview. “We need product, technology, data and business teams sitting side by side with UX and the people we serve, learning and co-creating together from the beginning.”
With Nair’s appointment, the company will add to its roster a seasoned retail executive who has spent years working in positions that blend product and technology together, racking up experience at Lowe’s, Staples and Gap.
His latest step reflects a broader trend of a combined product and technology position moving up the corporate ladder, a trend that includes Target’s Vemana, who was promoted to chief information and product officer last year.
Bringing product and technology together means companies can move faster and achieve “tighter alignment between the technology that goes into the product and what customers want,” Martha Heller, CEO at executive search firm Heller, told CIO Dive in a previous interview.
Nair’s appointment also comes at a time of transition for the retailer, a shift in strategy that appears to be paying off. During its Q1 2026 earnings call in May, the company reported that net sales were up 6.7% year over year to $25.4 billion.
“As AI reshapes retail, its true impact won’t ultimately be measured by models, benchmarks, or the sophistication of the technology,” Nair said in a Tuesday post on LinkedIn. “It will be measured on the frontlines. In how we make experiences better for guests. How we empower team members. How we simplify work. And ultimately, how we make the entire enterprise smarter while keeping people at the center.”
