Bedfellows: How Boll & Branch Keeps Humans and AI in the Same Sheets

Speaker A: Hello and welcome to Future Commerce, the podcast at the intersection of culture and commerce. I'm Philip.

Speaker B: I'm Brian.

Speaker A: And Brian, this is like our first time we've had, uh, you and me back in the seat in a little while. We've been, uh, all over the place. You look well rested.

Speaker B: Oh, good. I love looking well rested. I might be going to bed late, I might be getting up early, but I'm looking well rested because I'm sleeping on Bull and Branch sheets, which were sent to me by Bull and Wrench and are delightfully comfortable. Unbelievable. And I'm not just saying that. Actually the truth, uh, this is the episode where we talk to Bull and Branch. Welcome Chief Commercial Officer Katya Unlu to the show.

Speaker C: Hi guys. So nice to. So nice to see you, Brian. Um, so nice to see you, Philip. Um, I'm excited to be here and to chat all things comfort with you guys.

Speaker A: We're going to cover a lot today. We're going to get, uh, into, um, you know, you're in the process of opening five stores this summer. Um, retail experience is, ah, a good deal what we're cover recently on the show. Also want to talk about the balance, uh, that you're striking between AI implementation, you know, reducing friction, keeping the human touch. But you know, as we get into that, I'd really like to just talk a little bit about like, what your role is and um, you know, who you are and what you're doing at Ball and Branch.

Speaker C: Absolutely. For those that don't know, although I want every single person to sleep on Ball and Branch sheets, we're getting there. Every bed in America. Um, we will have almost 19 stores by the end of this year, which has been such a journey and I've actually been a part of this journey for half of its life, um, which has been just so rewarding for me personally and, and amazing. When I first started with the brand, we were primary 99% Ecom. And we have now expanded into all of these different channels. We're in Bloomingdale's and Nordstrom, um, across the country. And it's just been so many exciting milestones. We're in categories, we're launching travel and sleepwear and dabbling into furniture. And it's just been such an amazing journey to see now the company come to life in all of these places. So it's been incredible. My role has also expanded, honestly, as the business needed it and as the business needs change. So first it was really focused on, um, performance and analytics and D2C, um, and as we've grown all of these channels, we added retail and wholesale to the equation. And that's how my role has evolved. And it's been amazing.

Speaker A: There's the, the eras of retail. You, you covered it sort of the beginning of the D2C era. Right. And I, uh, know that Bolan Branch has done such a tremendous job in thought leadership and helping others in the industry understand how you've gained the success that you've had. Um, but it's not just D2C. Right. You've mentioned how now Boland, uh, branches is expanded, uh, beyond channels into other areas of influence. And now we're looking at all of the other retail investments. There's planningacies, uh, dot com, um, there's subscriptions, uh, subscription boxes like Birchbox, um, luxury. Right.

Speaker C: That was my prior background.

Speaker A: I know. I'd love to hear a little bit more about that. I think that tells the arc also of the consumer evolution. Right. There's a lot of evolution in how consumers are changing and all of the new modes in which they're purchasing and how they come to understand a brand and the relationship to a brand and how they may have a expectation of that relationship with the brand by which they discover the brand through the channel which they have the relationship. Um, what does that arc tell you about commerce and the consumer needs and priorities that are evolving?

Speaker C: One of the reasons I actually came to Bolland Branch, the like fundamentals for me, especially coming from a place where Birchworks was. And I think we can all, we, we all kind of know the archetype. Um, a lot of founders who came out of HBS in 2008. It was, it was like a very special class of hbs. Um, started a lot of, um, amazing brands out of it. Rent the Runway, Birchbox, Warby. And they were, they were great brands. They focused on one very singular product and they were very focused on marketing. And I think the fundamental miss and a lot of this like, crop of businesses that happened was that none of them thought about the customer and creating space experience for the customer that they're going after. So all of a sudden when the VC money stopped coming, they were left with rising cacs over time as Meta and Google and all these platforms became really competitive. And they were left with a product that was kind of okay with absolutely no path to repeat purchases, never expanded beyond the hero product. And then, and basically that's when the music stopped. Like, some have made it out of this carnage and have like, right size and figured out that path. But that was the plague of a lot of these companies. So where, where this gets into like Bullen Branch, I, I had all of that knowledge and background and when I was looking for a new role I was like, I'm going to go to a place that is, has always been first sort of profitable, fundamentals are intact. Um, a place that actually knows here's, here's like amazing product that we're making for people prior. I can't take any credit for what Scott and Missy, the founders of Bullen Branch started. They, they from day one, first order profitable from day one. They did things differently. They the sheets that Brian has had the pleasure of sleeping on was took years of careful crafting. They didn't just go out and buy a uh, sheet from a manufacturer and just like tried to sell it online to people. Missy spent like blood, sweat and tears toiling in creating a weave until it was perfect and then went to a factory in India and asked them to make that weave. The four hours a day I spent in product meetings, that is still how we run the company. And then thinking about how are we going to bring that product to life is like an afterthought. It's not the leading thought of how we come up with the product. We make a really great product and then we figure out how we're going to get into people's hands. And I think that is like the fundamental myths of the like DTC era. And I think the other piece too right that you hit upon is D2C took over and everybody thought that like, oh, I'll just buy things online and like nothing else needs to happen. People thought customer experience and customer service, I mean it's this outsourced function that lives in other countries that people don't even think or worry about what about the experience. And that is like such a symptom of this DTC era because that's not how retailers thought. There's plenty of retailers that have high touch services, that have clientelling, they have all of this infrastructure built in and it's almost like in the D2C rise boom, people like forgot that that's an important piece of the experience.

Speaker B: I think this is so huge. And um, I've heard the saying and I actually fully believe this, what you win them with is what you win them to. Um, and I think that that sort of speaks to the quality, like product quality is like number one, if you don't have a quality product, you can't do anything. Like eventually word of mouth is going to get around. And positive word of mouth is the most effective way to make sales, right. It's going to, it's a recommendation from a trusted friend or, or an advisor or a, uh, an expert, whatever it is. And that, that's like the surest way to get someone to buy your product. An outside third party voice. Bringing something to somebody else and sharing 100%.

Speaker C: Especially in our category, right. Like we see that really ring true. Like we are not beauty, we're not fash. The word of mouth is the, is like the most important thing that, that that happens in our category. There's still a cross generational like learning that happens. A mom still shopping at Bloomingdale's for her sheets and she will tell her daughter who is registering at Zola, hey, this is amazing. Like you should put foam brand sheets on your registry. Like that is still very much how people, people discover.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: The inverse of that is also true though. I think if someone says, oh, don't get that. That's actually close to a knockoff or whatever, they're not going to buy your product.

Speaker A: Oh yeah, that carries a tremendous, uh, it probably carries a lot more weight too. You probably have to hear more uh, positive reinforcement than you have to hear one negative reinforcement. That's been studied quite a bit, right?

Speaker B: Yeah, totally. And I think so. Uh, one of the things that uh, as you're talking, uh, I just like, I think Philip actually inadvertently said it best. Bone Branch is sort of the Taylor Swift of, uh.

Speaker A: When did I say that?

Speaker B: You said the word eras. And I think that I love it.

Speaker C: I totally didn't catch that. That's so good.

Speaker B: Uh, what Bone Branch has been able to do is enter the market in an era that was so direct to consumer. It was just like, okay, this is how you sell now. This is how we're going to build audiences and build markets and so on. And what you've done though is you've been able to say, hold up. There are things from the past like Americana in Taylor Swift's case, or pop or whatever it is. Pull back on and say, he's got all boys too.

Speaker A: I don't know where this is coming from. This is wild.

Speaker B: I'm not even a Taylor Swift fan. Uh, which is just admitting.

Speaker A: Methinks thou doth protest too much.

Speaker B: Um, a couple of her songs are pretty good.

Speaker A: Go on.

Speaker C: That's the real truth. He actually is a Taylor Swift.

Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna say he's a closet Taylor Swift fan. Go on. Yeah, it's the. Give, uh, us the uh, all too well, 10 minute version of Bowling Branch, I want to hear what m. I

Speaker B: mean, the reality is

Speaker A: this is all getting struck. I just know it. This is coming back. This whole thing is going to be cut.

Speaker B: I came out as a Taylor Swift fan, right? I'm not a Taylor Swift fan. Uh, the thing is we're reaching back. We're hitting on things that are tried and true methods of connecting with customers. Once you have a good product, you need to be in the places where people are and they need to experience especially something like sheets, touching, feeling, smelling, having things in the context they'll actually be in. And I know that you've introduced a program where you actually come into someone's home and actually into a very intimate space, their bedroom, and help them style and get a feel for what they could experience with Bone Branch products. And I think that that's just uh, it harkens back to a different era and maybe even surpasses it. There's not many consumer products available at a broad level that would offer up a service like this. Um, and to come out of the era that you did into and then introduce something that engages more than just, uh, well, asynchronous purchasing patterns is like, I think a really big step for, for any brand that came out of that era to continue to succeed, they will have to follow this path. Totally.

Speaker C: Scott and Missy, it wasn't even in their purview like, oh hey, you should take a bunch of VC money and like, that's how you should grow and like spend a bunch of money on meta. When I came in into the brand in 2019, a lot of our advertising was done on audio as an example, like traditional like radio advertising. And it was, was they just like weren't even that in that world that like in my prior careers I was in the customer service number for a very long time. And still to this day rings Scott's cell phone. Right? Like that is like that's how we, like that's how they just always behave. They never got like the company just never got distracted by all the ups and downs. And same with COVID I think a lot of brands, especially in home had an up and down excellent Covid. Right. And then not so excellent afterwards. Right. Because people were in their homes and sure. Or everyone was zooming from their bedrooms. Right. And. And we just have continued to just execute our plan, stay on track, have the fundamentals, always obsessing about product, always obsessing about the customer experience. That's just like always been true. So we just haven't had all of the ups and downs over the last even seven years that everyone's been on because we've just, that's just always been ingrained in the company.

Speaker A: There's, there's interesting, uh, behavior and something I'll muse on. Um, and then I guess I could sort of redirect it, um, back to how, um, your programs and you know, sending stylists into customers homes. I really want to hear more about that. Um, but I look at my own purchasing behavior in this category and I look at how maybe there's. It's unlike. This behavior is unlike other categories where there's a bit of a, an irrational. I would say an irrational behavior. I could buy a single set of sheets and wash them and put them on my bed, but that's not how I behave. I find something I like and I buy three or four of them. I keep them stocked. I'll put one in the wash, I put another one on. Like there is a methodology or like a behavior, a behavioral pattern that is unlike other product categories that I think is an interesting behavior. And I also, it's. It tends to skew a lot more towards um, taste and fashion and trend. And I have things from, you know, from 10 years ago that I don't use as much as I'm using right now, but I don't think of it in that way. Right. So I tend to be influenced um, a lot by what, uh, I see others buying. Maybe, uh, Ad Creative. Um, and I'm curious what a program around something like. I think you have this stylus, uh, program. I'm curious what others are using and looking for, for recommendations that might help them to enable more of this, uh, you know, curation and purchasing behavior patterns might be able to do that. Helps them.

Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And we, you know, that is the like, replenishment angle is definitely one angle. I think sheets is such an unconsidered purchase because there's no market leader in this category. Right. Most people just go to Target or go to Amazon Basics or go to Ikea and that's where they get their sheets. Because like I was Costco totally. Because there's no brand leader in this category. And that's like the exciting part of like the opportunity that is still out there for, for us and others to take, um, where there's just not a market leader because there's no brand. Like honestly, besides Bowling Bridge, there's no brand that thinks about building a brand and having really quality products that will stand up to time out there. So, you know, just to, you know, touch on the like, uh, we call it the room service program. But, um, it really goes to the fundamentals of how and why we've opened stores. We open stores for a very different reason than Most. I think D2C brands have. Um, you know, you saw, you saw this behavior coming out of COVID all these D2C brands, they were like, we're gonna open up a bunch of stores and that's what's gonna save us. And then basically, you saw them all closing these stores a year later because it didn't work. Fundamentally, most brands think that stores are like some sort of a brand awareness channel for them. They think, I'm going to plop a store in the middle of SoHo in New York City. And the people, they'll just come. That's how they will discover us. It's a billboard for us. Fundamentally, that is not how we think about opening stores. Sure. Over time, for sure, it's going to help drive up awareness in that market for us. Absolutely. But fundamentally, we open stores in places where our customers are because we want to build an even better relationship with them over time. And having a person in their community, in their market, that understands that in Bethesda, uh, the time that you have to be in, in there on the street, like, this is the local, like, charity that you have to be a part of. And like, this is the community and this is like the fun stuff that happens around it. Having a person like that in that market is like everything for us. Because all of a sudden there's a face to, to a name. You can talk to somebody, you can call them, you can tell them about my daughter's graduating. Uh, it's such, this is such a milestone in my life. I have no idea what it's going to be like when she leaves my house. Uh, she's been in my house for 18 years. And it is such a journey that they're on, and we're a part of that journey with them. We're like, don't worry. One thing you can check off your list is dorm bedding. We will help you set it up for her. We will do everything. If you want us to come to college, if you want us to ship it to you, we will do whatever. We do that all the time. You move to a new house, we're like, hey, if you're interested. And, uh, not all people are. Right. As you guys said, it is a very intimate setting. It's a very intimate. I don't need. I personally don't want someone in my house to be looking at all the crap that's on my nightstand. I mean, it's a mess. Like, I don't need them seeing that stuff. But there are a lot of people that do. They're like, I don't. I don't know how to. You buy sheets. I don't know how to put them on the bed. I don't know how to style them. The other thing, too, Philip, that you write, like, part of it is the replenishment piece, but what we see, right, is people. They're like, wow, the sheets are amazing. I've washed them a hundred times, and they look better than when they did when I took them out of the package. And then all of a sudden, they want everything on their bed, in their bathroom to be bowling branch. They're like, how about my pillows? How about my divan cert? Like, I want to upgrade everything in my life to be bowling bridge. And that is what we see. And they don't. They. Some people are like, fine. Oh, I'll just throw it on, whatever. But some people really want our help and support. And we do that absolutely all day long. We're like, you're moving to a new house. We can take care of that for you. You already have enough on your plate. First thing you can have is probably be sleeping on a mattress, because RH Or Crate and Barrel. Pottery Barrel. Forgot, you know, the bed's delayed, so we will help you set it up. Like, whatever you need for you. And we do that all the time. And we bring croissants, we bring flowers.

Speaker A: Whoa.

Speaker C: But that's the fund, like, the fundamental pieces. We're there for our customers. We open store where our customers already are so we can get to know them better. And I think that a lot of our decision making around what programs we have in stores, what type of people we hire in stores, uh, how we lead, what marketing activations we do in these stores all falls out of that. That's like the fundamental principle so, so essential.

Speaker B: I think one of the things that you're kind of hitting on, it's sort of swirling around is people might buy something they enjoy, but they will actually define, defend what they love. And I think this is where, like, having people that you can develop affection for and connection to in, uh, markets where you have strength is such a. Such an incredible play because you're actually not just trying to sell. You're trying to cultivate that. That sort of affection for and. And. And real connection to life. You talked about important moments in people's lives, like their child graduating Leaving their home and going to college, like, that's an essential piece of someone's life. And I'm coming up on that relatively soon. So it's very top of mind right now. So. Yes, yeah, you can help me with that. Um, I think this is, these are the kinds of moments where if you don't have someone that you trust, you don't have product, you, you can trust. I think the word here is trust. Uh, trust and love. Like these are the things that make the difference. Um, and it's funny, we've talked a lot about how you started 99% E Comm. You're now moving towards sort of the future of the brand, which is putting stores in places where you have strength with customers. Um, what kinds of data are you gathering from those in person experiences to go back to the digital experience? And how does that improve the overall feeling of the brand?

Speaker C: Yeah, great question. And I think that there's, there's of course we do a lot of things that, that like, I would call like fundamental table stakes. We have a post purchase survey, right, that, that once you've placed and order, for example, online that it pops up or you had an interaction in store, it sends you an email, you know, tell us, like, why did you make this purchase? Like, what, what inspired you to make it? How did you hear about us? Uh, all of those things. I learned the most from the one hour store manager call that I have on a weekly basis than I do from any of those like, type of things. The anecdotes that you get from that can inspire so much. So I'll give you an example. We've been talking about our, uh, room service program and how, you know, again, like, not everybody wants us in their homes. Some people are super private and they don't want that. And you know, store manager, they were like, so what I've been doing is I've been asking people to take a picture of your bedroom and like email it to me and then I can help put together like a little lookbook for you of like, what are the colors that could go with your, um, uh, with your bed frame, etc. With your nightstands. And I was listening to this and I was like, man, there's got to be something, especially in the age of AI that can help us like put the actual pieces on the bed for the customer M. Virtually. So we've been, we launch and we've been testing now since like end of April, this virtual bed designer. Um, so it's a tool that anybody can use it's on our website, um, where any customer can just go take a picture, upload a picture of their bedroom and select pieces on it and we'll help guide you too. But it has been a game changer I think especially in stores because now all of a sudden all of those like emails back and forth and the awkward like lookbooks that they were creating is completely seamless. Here's your bed. Here's our product on your bed. And again from like what actually ends up happening. People buy everything. Of course they're like of course this is what I want it to look like. Please, please send me everything. Right. So there's like real revenue implications that have now come out of this. But it started with literally a conversation that we were having with the store manager on this call and I find the most valuable insights from that around how customers think. Like you're not my other like I would say like favorite. Um we have a channel called um Fairing which is comes out of our post purchase um survey but we have a free form as part of it. And it's like what um one of the questions is like what was frustrating about your experience? What did you not get? So I my doom scroll at night and early in the morning is that Slack channel Because we're getting live feedback from people and we learn so much. Like as an example bed skirts. Not a huge market for them. Who has bed skirts these days? Like it's not but some customers do so out of that they were like man I really wish you had a bed skirt. We're going to make a bed skirt because the people want a bed skirt. So we find so much inspiration and again of course like ways to improve the website experience. But even product, even everything and we get so much also praise for our customer experience team through those channels as well. Right. Caitlin, she was amazing. She was incredible. She went out of my, out of my way. She sent my daughter a book because she's going to a big girl bed. I mean it's just like so much valuable insights comes from that. And of course we use AI to aggregate information and create themes and do all that stuff. But um, there's no shortcut for what like real life consumer insights can give you when you just go and talk to people in stores.

Speaker A: Uh Fairing, longtime partner of Future uh Commerce empowered our word of mouth index um at future uh commerce plus uh so a built in ah selfish blog futurecommerce.com plus uh if you're a paying member you know about the power of the word of mouth Index um and for many years uh, what we tracked on the word of Mouth index is that consistently especially in uh, uh the home category, word of mouth is the number one uh indicator and predictor for people to ah get that second purchase or convert to subscription, uh, or uh, their propensity to keep uh the product and not convert uh like a return. Um so word of mouth happens to be uh, always the highest factor for uh quality and for satisfaction among a customer, uh above any other channel for uh. How did you hear about us? Which fairing is um, the post purchase survey company, um, and a good friend of ours, Matt who uh started it, um, so uh, just a little plug there. Uh, we like them a lot. So uh, one interesting thing you noted, AI and how AI has uh, really you know delivered a lot of benefit. I think also the same AI that helps to uh, help a consumer to visualize what can be done for uh, them and how it might work for them within the confines of their home is also uh, there are tools now that might be weaponized against you in the CX channel and as the brand, um, something caught our eye a few months ago, um, on LinkedIn, uh, Scott Tannen, founder CEO Bowen Branch, um, had this post uh, with a couple pictures that I think were submitted through uh your CX channel. Ah, and I think the post started with AI tried to steal from us today. Not theoretically, not theoretically, but today. Um, but this generative AI picture was uh used to sort of counterfeit uh this idea of a damaged sheet or bedding. Um and we've seen this, we've reported on this now for a few months. Uh we had this large write up about how this is a pervasive problem with CX teams. Uh, I'm interested and curious how outside of this one incident your team is catching these things. Obviously, um, you're transparent in writing it up and calling it out. This went viral. Um, how's it impacting team training and awareness and what are you doing about it?

Speaker C: I'll give you another example too of something that recently I was literally listening to a call last week with my team. Um, it was a full on AI agent that called us ah, asking for a refund. It was like, but it was like so blatant.

Speaker A: No.

Speaker C: Yes, yes it was, it was epic. It was so epic. Um, it was like I am hello, I am Nate, I am Brian's assistant. Brian is going to be traveling outside the country. Like it was so blatantly obvious at one point, um, our team member, um, Rachel, she asked, she was like Are you AI? And then there was like a five minute extensive long pause and the AI goes, no, I am Nate, Brian's assistant. It was so, it was so epic. But it, it does, it happens. But the reason why we caught that incident and this one to begin with is because we have real human people that are.

Speaker A: Right, right.

Speaker C: Looking at this, that know the brand in two seconds. They looked at the photo and they were like, that's not how. That's not how that waffle blanket tears. Like, that's, that's not real. That's not. It would never happen. Like, even if you cut, they have been, they have seen everything. I'm not going to go into all the stories of all the weird, gross stuff that they've seen from customer photos too. Uh, like they've seen it all in two seconds. They were like, this is absolutely not real. Right. And that's, and that's going to happen. Right. But the benefit that we have is that we have a real team of people that sit in our summit office that are here that see this stuff all day and every day. And of course again, they use AI tools on the back end to help them. But like, it's because they're there and they spotted it and we're there. We have no plans to change that. So of course, right, like we're going to be adding in some, you know, we bring on, for example, additional help during holiday because that's like peak time for us for sales and etc. Right. People are thinking about gifting, um, especially for, you know, around Thanksgiving and the holidays and stuff like that. So we bring on temp help and for sure that's going to be in our training and onboarding with, with them, things to watch out for. But the end of the day it's like, it's because it's humans that understand and know our brand and know how the product is going to tear or like know how people ask for a refund if they actually want a refund because they are going to keep purchasing with a brand or if this is a actual just fraud case.

Speaker A: Matt Prince, uh, who's the CEO of Cloudflare, mentioned, um, last year at Cannes Lions, he said, we've reached the tipping, uh, point. Uh, more traffic on the Internet is agentic than not. And that was 2025. We are at the post human future of the Internet. Right? So most of the traffic that's on the Internet right now is agentic. That means that more of our attention is going to agents than before. And I wonder, this is me wondering Aloud. I'm not asking you to weigh in on it, Katya. Ah, but my concern is I wonder at what point in the future will we have to contend with more of the agentic, uh, support calls? Because that is a human that has kicked that off on the other side of it, at some point we are catering to agents through AEO efforts and we want to be discoverable to agents. At least some brands are seeing the opportunity there. And I think some people have even said that maybe at some point it was arbitrage, now it's commonplace. We need to be discoverable through ChatGPT or Claude.

Speaker B: So what you're saying, Philip, is maybe the call that Katya just described earlier was actually, was actually legitimate. Like some. Someone.

Speaker A: Well, someone kicked it off in motion.

Speaker B: Not as like.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But as like an opportunity for them to actually return their sheets that they wanted to return. And it actually was legitimate.

Speaker A: Well, I'm not saying it's not legitimate or it is legitimate. I'm saying that at some point in the future we will likely reach some sort of tipping point where many of the calls, if not most of the calls are agents. And I have to wonder if we, we are, you know, we have to have some protocol to have to deal with them. I'm curious if you like, what if there is a internal, um, you know, playbook to have to deal with these. Now they seem to be not commonplace but you know, you're going to have to learn to have to deal with the agent led agentic call. Um, in the same way that you would probably deal with it differently if it was an agentic traffic that was coming into the website. Right. We're probably a little more accepting of agentic traffic on the website than we are agentic calls into the CX team. Um, that's more me musing than anything else. I think that as the Internet becomes more agentic, I, I have, I wonder how much of real life is being brokered by agentic traffic. Uh, as well. Right?

Speaker C: Totally, totally. 100% true. I mean that's, it's going to keep evolving.

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah.

Speaker C: And some of them, to your point, right. Are going to be an actual. There are plenty of people that have AI assistance. Like that's real. I think it's just going to be about trying to. Again, when you, when. If you have an internal CX team, right. That knows the brand and knows what are the types of things typically that people actually return because of. Right. Versus like there's such clear triggers for people that we know when it's Fraud for sure. I think you know, for us it's like training anybody that bring on board around like what those like trigger words are that we know. Um, but yeah, of course there's going to be a point where someone is going to have an AI assistant call us to actually legitimately return something.

Speaker B: Right. In which case how do you handle that? And Philip, this is actually where I think we start to get into something you uh, have talked about and written about before. The idea of agentic ghettos, you called them, which is paths for AI to actually take that are not uh, paths that we would send humans down.

Speaker A: Yeah, I just want to make sure I define that. The write up was in January of 2025 and it was when um, the original universal uh, commerce protocol was uh, announced with this consortium of uh, folks uh, in the commerce industry. And the goal there was for me to basically say, I think if we're going to create agents that are going around buying stuff in the world on the Internet, um, we should probably, if they're going to be functional substitutes for human desire and human activity, then they should be using interfaces that humans use as well. We shouldn't be creating another Internet just for agents. Right. To me it's creating something that humans don't interact with that humans like it's a, we're creating a fast lane just for agents or we're creating a uh, slow lane special for humans or slow lanes for humans. Right. To me, like we're creating this new, we're recreating the old, um, all the lessons that we learned from the past of like the mobile Internet that we then backtracked on and we then created the responsive web. We've learned these lessons before and we don't need another five year hard lesson to learn again. That's what I said around that.

Speaker B: So my point in bringing this up though is this uh, when we talk about analog engagement, like engagement with actual people rather than technology that's sitting on the other side. So agentic ghettos, uh, as you put them. When it comes to these asynchronous digital experiences that we're creating and ways of fielding uh, interest in those things. Traffic. Right. And ways of like funneling that traffic, it may be relatively simple to build experiences that an agent can just follow because we're talking about something that's built, a system that's built. But when we talk about engaging with actual people, this is where things start to get really tricky. Because now we're talking about a computer, a AI, the machine world, trying to come engage with the human world and engage. Well, the problem with that, it's infinitely scalable. Right? And so I think that there's going to need to start to be some standards around this and something that I think would be really interesting and I want to bring this back around to the AI, um, you know, experience that you built. Katya. And there's an article, uh, that, um, Brian Kempel, uh, over at the Lyceum Institute Institute, recently wrote called what Must Remain or Ours Standards for AI Evaluation. And he had this idea about stimulation versus substitution. And I think this is really essential right now. And I think this idea of like, substituting for humans and using AI as substitutes for humans, um, substituting tasks or processes that we've done versus things that cause us to want to engage more and learn more. So we're not just turning off our brains and putting things in the hands of the AI. We're actually using the AI to enhance or push us further towards something and actually want to master and make it our own in the process. And so I think, um, as brands start to think about this, I think that when you substitute, if you're going to substitute for something, make sure it's something that you don't want to take away from a human. And we talk about this all the time. Frictionless versus friction. Where is the good friction in the process of AI? And I think that's the question right now. And it sounds like, um, the experience you create in my mind is an opportunity to enhance and get people to engage in a way they feel comfortable with.

Speaker C: I'm going to use that framing with my team when I walk out of this. It's such a good one. It is. Like, that is very much. We very much don't want to substitute. We don't have an AI bot on our website that you can even ask questions to. Like, we don't. We believe in having an interaction. We don't want to substitute that, but we enhance right on the backside. Um, and, and we stimulate. Right. Like, I think the virtual bed designer is a perfect example of that. We, if we, we use it as an interactive tool to interact with customers. Right? Like, let's add this, let's remove this. Like this now looks better. I really like that framing, as always.

Speaker A: I mean, a stimulating conversation. I'm curious, uh, we ask all of our guests, what does the future hold? If you had to look into the crystal ball, bull and branch of the future, uh, you're opening new stores all the time. You've got three, uh, that we just talked about. In the pre show that are opening imminently. Uh, what's the playbook of 2026? Uh, H2, 2027. What do you got coming up?

Speaker C: Yeah, I think, um, it sounds really boring. Um, and I say this all the time, but it's a lot of what we're doing now and nobody, I feel like people don't like to hear that, but that has been, you know, I, I, I love that people want to hear like a really shiny thing that we're doing. But we're, we're continuing to execute our plan. Like this is our plan and we're going to open. We already have signed four more stores for next year. We uh, we are continuing to elevate our experience. Nordstrom locations and Bloomingdale's locations to make sure that it looks like really brand right and that those teams, um, there are also educated at our brand. So like it's really a lot of those types of things and it's not, we're coming out with some sexy new cool thing. Um, I will say one piece that we are like, I think that is, remains like a big opportunity for us is um, we do have an interior designer program. We do have like a small like hospitality program. But that space as you can imagine, is very relevant for us. Um, so I think that there's a lot of opportunity and like headroom to grow in that, that side for us. So I'm very excited about that.

Speaker B: I love that. Blocking and tackling, that's how you build a brand. Good product, good people develop affection. I mean what can get better than that in this day and age?

Speaker A: Thanks Brian.

Speaker C: Thank you both.

Speaker A: What an incredible uh, brand. What an incredible uh, set of accomplishments and to have done it over such a long period of time, uh, incredible. Katia Unlu's the chief commercial officer at Bolin Branch and congrats on all the success and wish you continued success in the future.

Speaker C: Thank you so much. This was so fun you guys.

Speaker A: Uh, thanks for watching this episode of Future Commerce. If it sparked something for you and if you like, uh, you should subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. It helps more people join the conversation. If you want to bring more Future Commerce into your world, we have a print shop. Go to futurecommerce.com, our brand new website where we've just revised everything. We got a bunch of topical stuff for you to go check out and our beautiful print books. You can put this probably on your nightstand next to your beautiful uh, bowl and branch books. If you don't have this. Katya we got to get this to you.

Speaker C: Yeah, I need it for my shelf over here.

Speaker A: Yeah, we have a whole library of these. Now, this is our fifth book, and, uh, we've got some new stuff coming, so, uh, commerce and culture together and beautifully crafted, uh, books, zines, and things for your coffee table, your bookshelf. And, uh. Anyway, remember that commerce shapes the future, because commerce is culture. We'll see you next time.