The Voice of Retail AI in Retail: Proof of Concept to Production with Cari Covent, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology, Canadian Tire Corporation.
Recorded live on the stage at the Retail West conference in Vancouver in November, joining me after a brief introduction by RCC's excellent Greg Wilson, Director of Government Affairs for B.C., is Cari Covent, Head of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology, Canadian Tire Corporation.
Together, we explore the importance of taking a holistic approach to embracing AI for retailers, the importance of change management, starting small with automating routine tasks that can ladder up to more comprehensive use case models, and above all, focussing on the customer, solving problems and being faithful to your brand promise in everything you do with AI in your business.
One quick note: Cari and I refer several times to a presentation from Rob Dunlap, IBM's Partner and Generative AI Practice Leader, that preceded our session. I interviewed Rob for the #podcast earlier in the fall, so be sure to listen to my conversation for some context to our comments.
About Cari
As the Head of AI and Emerging Technology at Canadian Tire, Cari is responsible for using AI as a lever to drive both cultural and digital transformation. With a human centered approach Cari has a successful track record of leading the development and execution of strategy, roadmaps and operating models for Automation and Artificial Intelligence resulting in revenue growth, increased employee engagement and operating efficiencies. Cari is passionate about developing innovative partnerships with start-up communities, research and academic institutions. These partnerships have led to the ideation, shared learnings, research, and development of novel AI products, education development and best practices on the operationalization of building and developing AI responsibly. Her approach to balancing the macro change required for successful adoption of AI with the value that it can generate has resulted in many international speaking engagements and advisory discussions.
Michael LeBlanc is the president and founder of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc, a senior retail advisor, keynote speaker and now, media entrepreneur. He has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career.
Michael has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions and participated worldwide in thought leadership panels, most recently on the main stage in Toronto at Retail Council of Canada’s Retail Marketing conference with leaders from Walmart & Google. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience with Levi's, Black & Decker, Hudson's Bay, CanWest Media, Pandora Jewellery, The Shopping Channel and Retail Council of Canada to his advisory, speaking and media practice.
Michael produces and hosts a network of leading retail trade podcasts, including the award-winning No.1 independent retail industry podcast in America, Remarkable Retail with his partner, Dallas-based best-selling author Steve Dennis; Canada's top retail industry podcast The Voice of Retail and Canada's top food industry and one of the top Canadian-produced management independent podcasts in the country, The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Rethink Retail has recognized Michael as one of the top global retail experts for the fifth year in a row, the National Retail Federation has designated Michael as on their Top Retail Voices for 2025, Thinkers 360 has named him on of the Top 50 global thought leaders in retail, RTIH has named him a top 100 global though leader in retail technology and Coresight Research has named Michael a Retail AI Influencer. If you are a BBQ fan, you can tune into Michael’s cooking show, Last Request BBQ, on YouTube, Instagram, X and yes, TikTok.
Michael is available for keynote presentations helping retailers, brands and retail industry insiders explaining the current state and future of the retail industry in North America and around the world.