Total Retail Tech Insights
Total Retail Tech Insights was created as a resource for executives in the retail industry who seek information and solutions for their technology wants and needs. Through brief but in-depth interviews with subject matter experts and industry thought leaders, listeners take away actionable information and practical advice to help drive their technology road maps. From idea to implementation, Total Retail Tech Insights is the content retail executives need to optimize their use of technology throughout their organizations.
Why Your Marketing AI Isn't Getting Any Smarter

In this episode of Total Retail Tech Insights, Editor-in-Chief Joe Keenan interviews Eugene Yukin, vice president of products at MessageGears, the data activation and engagement platform that helps enterprises harness their data by streamlining the tech stack. Listen in as Yukin discusses his career experience in retail and product (1:10), the MessageGears platform (2:30), and how both retailers and consumers are utilizing artificial intelligence (4:00). AI-driven retail marketing results are plateauing despite wider adoption, with Yukin identifying the issue as a lack of AI-ready data practices — siloed, stale, or trapped engagement data (8:00). He outlines challenges in enabling a fully connected data ecosystem for retailers (12:30) as well as steps to reshape data architecture to support high-performing AI (15:00).

In addition, Yukin details what a continuous feedback loop looks like in practice (16:30), plus benefits and tradeoffs around data security, cost visibility, and compounding intelligence (19:30). He addresses how data accessibility across a retail organization can accelerate speed-to-market and decision-making (22:50), as well as the ultimate return on investment for retailers with AI-optimized data structures (25:15). Lastly, Yukin recommends auditing engagement-data latency, evaluating vendors by whether AI improvements enrich the retailer, and running end-to-end feedback loop experiments to get started (28:00).

Eugene Yukin is vice president of product at MessageGears, the warehouse-native cross-channel marketing platform trusted by enterprise brands like Chewy, Camping World, and Sherwin-Williams. With over 15 years in martech and personalization, he has led cross-functional teams, built digital experiences, and driven growth across startups and Fortune 1000s. Prior to MessageGears, Yukin was senior director of personalization, content strategy, and martech at Carter’s, where he built the company’s first data-driven personalization team. His background includes product leadership at The Home Depot and Lamoda, as well as founding two venture-backed startups.

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