Why Ulta's CX leader wishes he moved faster on AI
Featuring Adam Seede
Vice President, Guest Care at Ulta Beauty
How one of retail's most loyal customer bases gets even more personal with AI
Adam Seede has spent over eight years building one of the most loyalty-driven customer experiences in retail. In this conversation, the VP of Guest Care at Ulta Beauty shares why he wishes he'd moved faster on AI — and what he's doing now to make up for it.
"AI works when you feed it data, and it has to be a two-way relationship. It's gotta be actionable or agentic AI. And so we have the opportunity to feed more data so that it can be actionable. And we're doing that now and that's gonna be super exciting. It's going to unlock a ton of capability."
Adam Seede
Vice President, Guest Care, Ulta
In this episode, Adam shares how Ulta treats AI like a new team member, why he wishes he had moved faster on AI adoption, and how 45 million loyalty members create the data foundation that makes personalization actually work. He also reveals he started his career at 17, selling beauty products on the phone, setting up a foundation for becoming a CX powerhouse.
About the host
Joseph Ansanelli is Executive Chairman & Co-Founder of Gladly, a CX platform powered by AI that puts people, not tickets, at the center of every conversation. In addition to leading Gladly, Joseph is a partner at Greylock Partners. As host of Radically Personal, he serves as a curiosity translator, drawing out strategies and hard-won lessons from CX leaders navigating the AI revolution, exploring how they prove ROI, manage change, and scale without compromise.
About the guest
Adam Seede leads guest services at Ulta Beauty, where he oversees customer experience across one of retail's most recognized loyalty programs with millions of members. He joined Ulta almost a decade ago during a period of aggressive expansion that saw the company opening more than 100 stores per year. Before Ulta, Adam spent 13 years at Nordstrom and 13 years at APAC Customer Care, where he opened contact centers across the country. He started in customer experience at 17, working the phones, selling Discover Cards, and beauty products. Three decades later, he's still in the industry because, as he puts it, you either love this work, or it eats you alive. Adam has guided Ulta's guest services team through a pandemic-era platform migration, the launch of AI-powered customer support, and international expansion.
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