Target Appoints Chandhu Nair as Its First Chief AI Officer

Target announced on August 11 that Chandhu Nair will become the company's first Chief AI Officer and Senior Vice President when he joins on August 24. This hire makes Target one of the last major US retailers to create a dedicated AI leadership role at the senior vice president level, following Walmart, Gap, and Best Buy.

Nair joins from Lowe's, where he led Stores, Data, AI and Innovation as Senior Vice President. This role placed him at the intersection of physical retail operations and AI infrastructure at a company that competes in the same home improvement category Target has been expanding into. He has also held leadership roles at Staples and Gap.

"The most meaningful AI stories won't be about what happens in a lab," Nair said in Target's announcement. "They'll be about what happens on the front line, how we make shopping easier for a guest, give a team member a better tool, make a business decision with more confidence or bring a new idea to market faster."

The announcement names an organizational principle, and a performance standard: the measure of success is outcomes for guests and team members, not the sophistication of the technology deployed.

Nair said his first priority will be to listen and learn, spending time with teams and seeing the business through the eyes of guests, team members, and partners before determining where AI can make the biggest difference. 

Target already has AI in production. Target Trend Brain which identifies trend-relevant styles, colors, and materials ahead of consumer demand, and a conversational AI gift-finding tool launched during the 2025 holiday season. The CAIO role is designed to coordinate those existing deployments and determine what comes next, according to the press release.

Simultaneously, Purvi Shah was appointed as Senior Vice President of UX. Shah described UX's role as shaping not only what people see but the systems and decisions behind the experience.

Target's announcement arrives alongside a broader retail AI leadership trend. Former Walmart CEO Douglas McMillon cited the coming wave of agentic commerce and AI shopping as a direct reason for stepping down in February 2026, saying the next chapter required someone who could move faster on AI. 

John Furner took over the post. Gap has partnered with Google Gemini. Best Buy has collaborations in place with OpenAI and Google. Target's CAIO appointment places it firmly inside that cohort, and Nair's frontline-first philosophy signals the direction it intends to take.