Thought Leadership
AI, Identity & Strategy
I write from lived experience in strategy, identity, and AI. Generative AI helps refine clarity and validate data , but the voice and perspective are entirely my own.
Same Cart, Different Power: What Instacart’s AI Pricing Experiments Really Tell Us
Instacart calls it experimentation. Consumer Reports and Groundwork Collaborative call it what it is: an AI pricing system that quietly tests how far it can push your grocery bill. This essay connects their findings to food deserts, price elasticity, and racialized access, and lays out the guardrails any serious retailer or regulator should demand before turning AI loose on the cost of eating.
When Border Bias Becomes Training Data: Why AI Poses New Risks for Racialized Travelers
At the Canadian border, an officer asked what I thought about AI. When I told him its darkest risk is erasure, he brought up something most people avoid. New hires sometimes rely on instinct more than training, and their decisions shape who gets searched or stopped. If AI learns from those patterns, the bias becomes logic. This piece explores how border automation can harden inequities that already exist, and why systems must be designed to truly see the people they serve.
When Answer Synthesis Replaces Search, Visibility Becomes the First Casualty
Answer synthesis is positioned as the future of search, but most AI systems cannot see underrepresented communities clearly enough to summarize them. When a model replaces exploration with a single synthesized answer, nuance disappears and minority perspectives fall out of view. This piece examines how visibility collapses inside synthesis systems and what must change before this shift becomes the default.
A Retail Lens on Design Sprint Academy’s AI Framework
Design Sprint Academy delivered one of the clearest AI frameworks I’ve seen. Their focus on structured decision making, guided facilitation, and rapid learning is powerful. Through a retail lens, the work becomes even more interesting. Retail has two customers, deep emotional dynamics, and identity shaped behaviors that must be understood from the first conversation. The result is a richer, more human way of framing AI value. Here is what I learned and how the framework expands inside a sector that never stops moving.
Becoming Me: A Reintroduction
There are moments when your voice becomes impossible to ignore. This is the story of how pressure clarified my purpose, sharpened my leadership, and revealed the future I am built to lead in.
Before We Build Agents, We Need to Fix the Systems That Already Cannot See Us
AI doesn’t fail queer and BIPOC people because of “bias.” It fails because it cannot interpret our identities with accuracy, context, or cultural truth. This essay reveals the mechanisms behind that harm and introduces a new architecture to prevent identity collapse in the age of autonomous AI.
The Blanket Theory of Trust: How Target Lost Its Conscience
This one was hard to write. Not because I’m mad. Because I still want the blanket.
For years, Target was the rare brand that made belonging feel casual. You’d walk in for toothpaste and walk out with a little affirmation tucked into your bag. Pride wasn’t seasonal — it was spatial. It lived in the aisles, woven into the colors, the tone, the quiet promise that this place sees you.
And then, 2023 happened. The backlash. The retreat. The silence.
When Target pulled its Pride collection, it didn’t just move product — it moved meaning. It told queer people what we’ve always half-suspected: our safety here was situational.
This isn’t about outrage. It’s about empathy debt — the emotional residue that builds when remorse never matures into reflection. You can’t pay it off with apologies. You pay it off with change.
The Knox AI Empathy System: Redefining Empathetic Leadership in the Age of AI
I wrote AI, Craft & the Human Future of Retail because I’ve come to believe the real disruption of AI isn’t technical — it’s human. After years leading transformation work with Tredence and SymphonyAI, I watched automation accelerate faster than reflection, and intelligence scale faster than intention.
This paper is my attempt to restore that balance. It introduces The Knox AI Empathy System — a model and a mindset for designing organizations that think with care. It’s not about faster machines; it’s about wiser leaders.
Because in an age where intelligence is abundant, discernment has become the rarest skill of all.
AI for Humanity: How AI Can Empower Creativity
AI has become a household name in the world of creativity. It’s helping artists design stunning visuals, musicians compose new melodies, and writers craft stories. But let’s be honest—many of us still feel a little uneasy about it. Can a machine really understand creativity? And even if it can help, what does that mean for the uniquely human magic we bring to the process?
AI for Humanity: Using AI to Drive Social Responsibility in Retail
AI is reshaping CSR initiatives in ways that benefit both business outcomes and society at large. This blog post explores why retailers must embrace AI-driven social responsibility and dives into five innovative AI applications that can drive impactful change.