How Purva Gupta is bringing AI to retail advertising

AI may be the technology everyone is talking about, but proving its value in delivering ROI is still elusive. This is where Purva Gupta is hoping to change things by focusing AI’s capabilities on the retail industry. Gupta is co-founder and CEO of Lily AI, an e-commerce discovery platform that uses powerful technology to help brands reach consumers more quickly and effectively. Lily’s AI arsenal can look at product catalogs, extract attributes from images and deliver that information to brands for easily deployable advertising placements. What started out as a consultancy for on-site search has expanded to the much larger ecosystem of Google search, where brands can be noticed by large swaths of new consumers, or just as easily be overlooked by these audiences. Through Lily, which was founded in 2015, Gupta is helping brands land on the right side of this opportunity by identifying ads riddled with merchant-speak and replacing that text with more relatable consumer-speak. And with $20 million in recent funding, as well as a team that has doubled its size in the past year, Gupta is poised to grow these integrations significantly. “We are providing better attributes in the language of the consumer, and how we do that is the secret sauce,” Gupta said. Read about Ad Age’s 2024 Leading Women here What advice would you give to your younger self? You are so much stronger than you think, even when all odds of success are against you. With that strength, you’ll overcome the challenges thrown your way; solving problems everyone thinks are too difficult and conquering your own worries and doubts. With patience, perseverance and the courage to seek support when needed, you’ll grow to truly enjoy your entrepreneurial journey. What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken? Building from scratch is exactly what I did, when leaving my home in Northern India to break into the Silicon Valley as a new entrepreneur, with only months of cultural context, market immersion and no American professional contacts. That was a huge risk, especially considering that female-founded AI companies receive under 3% of venture capital funding deals. Starting that new life abroad, building a community, and founding an AI company that’s raised over $60M and supported some of the largest retailers and brands in the world, was certainly a risk worth taking. If you weren’t doing your current job, what would you be doing and why? For me, the most important thing is to provide people with something that will make them feel positive emotions. In fact, this has been a common thread throughout my career, from developing emotional connections to products for Saatchi and Saatchi’s client P&G, to developing mobile banking options for the unbanked at Eko, to investing in life-saving apps and technologies at UNICEF Ventures’ Innovation Fund, to founding Lily AI. Delivering real impact on the lives of real people is, and always will be, at the core of my choices. What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks? Investing in women-founded companies, and companies that are founded by women of color specifically, will bring more of both groups into the tech industry, due to founders bringing fewer inherent biases and doubts to their hiring phases. Did you know that 64% of women-owned technology companies were started by Black, Latina and Asian women? Offering greater support to women at all stages of their lives, and at all levels of business, will ultimately bring more of everyone into the ranks of technology, retail, and advertising. How will AI impact your job in the future? AI is my job, and I’ve been thinking about that morning, noon and night for the last eight years that Lily AI has been in business! I’m confident that AI is truly a growth engine that will uplift people in their jobs and empower them to engage in more meaningful, enjoyable, productive and impactful work. My own role will be one of the many impacted by AI in very positive ways, and I’m proud to play a part in the global transformation it’s bringing to retail! Read about Ad Age’s 2024 Leading Women here

How Purva Gupta is bringing AI to retail advertising

Featured Stories