Declining revenues. Mass layoffs and furloughs. Scrapped store openings. This is the story of COVID-19’s impact on retail—including once-invincible direct to consumer (DTC) brands. So how do the industry’s former disruptors respond and adapt to the pandemic today? And what future awaits DTC brands in six months, or a year?

In Retail Brew’s latest virtual event, we’ll explore that question with two of DTC’s most informed experts. Web Smith, founder of 2PM, and Helena Price Hambrecht, founder of Haus, will offer their insights as owner-operators in the DTC space to discuss...

-Challenges—and opportunities—unique to DTC amid the pandemic
-Growth strategies DTC brands can still rely on
-Emerging customer behaviors that could outlast the crisis

...and more.

Retail Brew: Why COVID-19 Could Reshape DTC Retail

Years' worth of tech shifts have materialized in a matter of months. Real-time biometric surveillance, robotic workers, and healthcare transformation, to name a few trends, are poised to accelerate through the pandemic.

Emerging Tech Brew’s first virtual event will focus on how COVID-19 will specifically alter the trajectory of AI—for consumers, citizens, and corporate boardrooms. We’ll discuss the opportunities and challenges of an artificially intelligent world. We’ll highlight the world’s tech juggernauts best-positioned to navigate these tectonic shifts. And we’ll imagine six-month and one-year scenarios for industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and e-commerce.

Joining the chat: Amy Webb, founder of the Future Today Institute, who literally wrote the book on our AI future, and Giles Whiting, partner at SoftBank Group, one of the world's largest investors in AI companies. Join us for a wide-ranging discussion on:

—the fate of the “Big Nine” AI giants
—automation and jobs in a post-pandemic world
—corporate investment in AI, machine learning, and automation
—the other players, from startups to governments, to watch

...and more.

Emerging Tech Brew: COVID-19 And AI Adoption

Several new brands are charging forward with launches despite the global pandemic. If they succeed, it won't be because the pressures of 2020 disappeared—it will be because they adapted.

Meet the panelists:
Shabdha Chigurupati, Co-Founder & VP Business Development and Finance at arfa
Olamide Olowe, Founder of Topicals
Jaime Schmidt, Founder of Schmidt’s Naturals and author of Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms

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