Gap launches AI marketing overhaul with Google Cloud, Zeta and Publicis Sapient

Gap Inc. is turning to artificial intelligence (AI) to streamline its marketing engine, aiming to deliver more relevant content and reduce friction across its ecommerce channels.

In a June 22 announcement, the retailer said it’s working with Google Cloud, Zeta Global and Publicis Sapient on an AI-led overhaul of its marketing organization. The initiative will extend across all of Gap’s banners, including Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta.

“This transformation brings together data, AI and agentic capabilities to help us better understand customer intent, move faster as an organization, and create more meaningful experiences across our portfolio of iconic brands,” said Sven Gerjets, Gap’s chief technology officer, in the announcement.

The goal, Gap said, is to make its owned channels more relevant, strengthen customer retention and break down silos across its marketing ecosystem. The effort also builds on Gap’s existing Google Cloud partnership. When the companies announced their agreement in October, they said it would give Gap “a unified, AI‑powered platform” to accelerate and improve ecommerce, product creation and customer experience.

Gap Inc. ranks as No. 19 in the Top 2000 Database. The database tracks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales and more.

How Gap plans to use AI in marketing

Unveiled at this week’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the transformation will start with Gap’s owned marketing channels. These include its ecommerce sites, apps, emails, loyalty communications and other direct customer messaging.

According to Gap, the overhaul is meant to turn its cross-brand marketing into “a more scalable, real-time growth engine.”

Damon Berger, Gap’s senior vice president of marketing shared services, said the effort will pair AI with Gap’s creative teams.

“We are using AI to give our teams more time for strategy, storytelling and the work that creates lasting brand love,” Berger said in the announcement.

A big part of the overhaul runs through Google Cloud. With the tech giant, Gap said it’s building a “unified, AI‑ready data foundation” that ties together customer and product data. In turn, the retailer said it expects “faster personalization, better decision-making and continuous learning across marketing content, activations, and ecommerce.”

To build AI‑driven workflows and create marketing content at scale, Gap said it’s using the following Google tools:

• Agent Studio. A low-code tool for building conversational AI assistants.
• Agent Engine. The engine that runs and powers the assistants.
• Gemini models. Google’s multimodal AI models for text, image and code generation.
• Nano Banana. Gemini’s AI image generator and photo editor.
• Veo. Google’s video generation model.

How Zeta Global and Publicis Sapient fit into the Gap AI overhaul

Beyond Google Cloud, Zeta Global will help Gap build a new AI-powered marketing stack. At the center is Athena by Zeta, which Gap described as an “intelligence layer” to link shopper data with marketing decisions and campaign execution.

“Athena is designed to help marketers understand what is happening, predict what will happen next and determine the highest-value action to take,” the retailer said.

In practice, Gap said Athena’s agentic AI capabilities can help unify decisions across audience planning, creative production, campaign rollout and performance improvements. The aim is to launch more personalized, scaled experiences and deliver “faster, more coordinated” campaigns, Gap said.

Separately, Publicis Sapient will power an operating model. The retailer said the enterprise AI company will help make its marketing “more connected, measurable and responsive to customer behavior.”

“Gap Inc. has always been a company that shapes culture,” Berger said. “And now we have an opportunity to reshape how we show up for customers in a faster, smarter and more personal way.”

Gap builds on earlier AI work

To help drive its AI efforts, Gap set up a formal Office of AI in 2024.

However, a major piece of its strategy came the following year, when Gap partnered with Google Cloud to use its AI technologies, including but not limited to Gemini, Vertex AI and BigQuery.

During the 2025 holiday season, the retailer introduced more personalized shopping features. Those included curated trend-based recommendations and a digital assistant on its ecommerce sites and apps.

More recently in March, Gap announced that customers would be able to discover and buy products directly through AI Mode in Google Search and the Gemini app.

That effort uses Google’s Universal Commerce Protocol, an open standard for agentic AI that it created with Shopify. It enables AI systems to connect to merchants’ checkout flows and complete transactions within conversational interfaces.

Additionally, Gap began working with Bold Metrics to roll out personalized size recommendations within AI interfaces.

“We are not pursuing AI for novelty,” Gerjets said in the March announcement. “These partnerships are about solving real customer problems — helping shoppers feel confident about fit and making it easier to complete a purchase.”

Gap looks to AI as online sales slip

The push comes after a mixed quarterly report for Gap.

In its fiscal Q1 2026 that ended May 2, Gap reported net sales of $3.50 billion, up 1.0% from a year earlier. Store sales rose 3%, while online sales fell 2%.

On the earnings call, Katrina O’Connell, Gap’s executive vice president and chief financial officer, said the online decline was “very specific to the quarter.” She pointed to weaker performance at Athleta, Gap’s “most digitally penetrated brand.” She also cited softness in dresses at Old Navy, noting that the category “over-indexes as an online business.”

Also on the call, Richard Dickson, Gap’s president and CEO, said the retailer is using product intelligence to improve how it designs, buys, allocates and replenishes inventory.

Gap also relaunched its loyalty program, Encore, in the quarter. Dickson said the company moved a house file of about 40 million customers from a transaction-based program to a broader engagement platform. The rebranded program adds new access, content and experiences across Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta, alongside traditional rewards.

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