Inside Target’s Experience-First Strategy with CIO Prat Vemana

Inside Target’s Experience-First Strategy with CIO Prat Vemana

From Technovation with Peter High (CIO, CTO, CDO, CXO Interviews) by Metis Strategy

April 30, 2026 · 31 min

About this episode

Peter High interviews Prat Vemana about Target's innovative approach to customer experience and the integration of design and AI in retail.

Retail is no longer about transactions, it’s about designing experiences that create joy. In this episode of Technovation , Peter High speaks with Prat Vemana , Chief Information and Product Officer at Target , about how one of the world’s largest retailers is redefining customer experience across digital and physical channels. Prat shares how Target is embedding design into every layer of the organization, leveraging AI to power conversational commerce, and building a unified, multi-channel journey that blends convenience with inspiration. Key highlights include: Why Target views itself as “in the business of joy” How UX is evolving into an enterprise-wide capability The shift from search and browse to conversational discovery Building AI-ready data through semantic and contextual layers Deploying agentic AI to accelerate decision-making at scale

People in this episode

Host: Peter High

Guest: Prat Vemana

Topics covered

  • customer experience
  • retail strategy
  • AI in retail
  • design thinking
  • multi-channel journey

Keywords

  • Target
  • customer experience
  • AI
  • conversational commerce
  • design
  • multi-channel
  • retail

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Target

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