Director, Data Science

Chewy puts a $50 million price tag on AI productivity. By PYMNTS | September 18, 2026 Highlights Chewy executives said they expect AI to take about $50 million out of its costs in fiscal 2027, up from the low tens of millions this fiscal year. CEO Sumit Singh told analysts he has high confidence in both figures. Most of the savings come from tools customers never see. AI pulls answers together for service agents, checks pharmacy data and books appointments at Chewy's vet clinics. Chewy spent several quarters getting its data right before it launched an AI assistant. Its new customer assistant, Cai, already resolves about 30% of chats without a human agent. Many companies can't put a number on what artificial intelligence does for their productivity. Chewy has one. Chewy CEO Sumit Singh said on the company's second-quarter earnings call that Chewy expects AI to reduce its costs by about $50 million in fiscal 2027, up from the low tens of millions of dollars this fiscal year. Asked how confident he was in those figures, Singh said he has high confidence. The savings come from customer service, pharmacy, veterinary care and tools for employees. Singh said the tools are past the experiment stage. They lower Chewy's cost to serve in a way that lasts. Chewy launched Cai, an AI assistant, to a select group of mobile app users during the quarter. Singh said Cai had been live less than a month and had reached less than 15% of Chewy's traffic. It handles the most common requests, which cover orders, returns, autoship and account management. About 30% of those chats ended without a human agent. A customer who wants a person gets a care team member within seconds. More of the work is internal. Chewy's service agents use many software systems, and new AI tools pull the answers together for them. Singh said that brings new agents close to the performance of experienced ones. In pharmacy, AI extracts and validates data and makes reviews more consistent. That lowers the cost to pick, pack and ship a pharmacy order. At select Chewy Vet Care clinics, a voice agent named Callie confirms appointments, schedules visits and handles routine follow-ups. Automation carries part of the load. More than half of Chewy's volume flows through automated facilities, Chief Financial Officer Chris Deppe said. Lower variable cost to serve was the largest contributor to the quarter's SG&A leverage. Data work came before the tools. Singh said Chewy spent several quarters building infrastructure and getting its data right before it shipped the assistants. Cai runs as several agents under an orchestrator, with automated returns and refunds built in. Chewy built all of it itself. That gives Chewy a lasting advantage because other companies would need years to reach the same point or would have to work through third-party providers. Please add us to your preferred sources list so our news, data and interviews show up in your feed. Thanks! Executives at large companies point to the same groundwork. The PYMNTS Intelligence report "The Enterprise AI Readiness Gap: What Company Data Reveals About the Real Barrier to Scale" found in April that 71% of executives at companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue name organizational readiness as the primary limit on AI performance. Savings fund growth and offset wage costs. Singh told analysts not to stack the $50 million on top of Chewy's fiscal 2026 margin path. Part of it will offset normal cost pressure such as wage inflation. Part may be reinvested in growth. Chewy views AI as a driver of margin gains, "not as a standalone pool of savings" bound for the bottom line, he said. Chewy hasn't set its reinvestment level for fiscal 2027. Singh said that decision belongs to the 2027 planning process. He named marketing, a redesigned Chewy+ membership and new products due in the back half of the year as places the money could go. Other large companies fund AI the same way. A Bain & Co. survey of 951 companies found 44% plan to pay for their next round of AI spending with savings from the last round, Bloomberg reported June 1. Enterprises are reporting returns. The PYMNTS Intelligence report "The Enterprise AI Payback Curve: Adoption Accelerates as Returns Take Shape" found in August that nearly all enterprises surveyed in financial services, healthcare and media reported positive AI returns over the past 12 months. At least 80% expect to raise AI spending next year.

Chewy veterinary clinic makes Northwest debut in Redmond. * john stearns * sep 18, 2026. Chewy Inc. - an online source for pet products, supplies, and prescriptions that expanded into brick-and-mortar veterinary clinics in 2024 - is opening its first Chewy Vet Care clinic in the Pacific Northwest today in Redmond. Chewy Vet Care Redmond is located at 16595 Redmond Way, Suite 155, in a retail space on the ground floor of the Eastline Grand apartments. The office includes two veterinarians, plus about a dozen support staff that include nurses, veterinary assistants, and office personnel. More veterinarians could be added as business dictates, Mita Malhotra, president of Chewy Health, said in an interview. Chewy, headquartered in Plantation, Florida, north of Miami, is no stranger to the Eastside; it has a large corporate office in Bellevue, where it has operated downtown since 2021. While exact staffing levels may fluctuate, the Bellevue office is generally home to around 700 employees, according to the company. Bellevue is one of Chewy's four corporate hubs, the other two being in Boston and Minneapolis, and supports the broader Chewy business nationally with team members spanning a range of corporate functions, including technology, healthcare, product, and merchandising roles. The company initially expanded into the Seattle area, in part, because of its strong talent base, particularly across technology and related fields, the company said. Chewy Vet Care Redmond, meanwhile, is a full-service veterinary practice, offering routine and urgent care from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday and Tuesday, and Thursday through Sunday, with the office closed on Wednesday. For more complex specialty surgeries, Chewy Vet Care will work to bring outside specialists to the clinic to maintain continuity of care for Chewy customers, often referred to as "pet parents." In some cases, Chewy may refer pet parents to an emergency hospital while maintaining customer contact throughout the process, sharing pet medical records with the hospital, and more, Malhotra said. "We want to hold your hand across the journey of your (pet's) health and not just drop you into an emergency hospital" and move on, Malhotra said. "We don't do that." Chewy Vet Care combines veterinary care with Chewy's broader healthcare ecosystem, including Chewy Pharmacy, Connect with a Vet, PetMD, and digital access to medical records and care information, according to the company. The decision to locate Chewy Vet Care in Redmond was driven more broadly by the attractiveness of the Seattle market for the clinic. Chewy research found a highly engaged, prevention-minded population of pet parents in King County, including high rates of annual veterinary visits and preventive/wellness care, according to the company. Some of Chewy's findings on Seattle pet parents include: * Seattle pet parents are highly engaged in their pets' health, with 91% visiting a veterinarian at least once a year, and 59% going multiple times a year, and 65% saying wellness exams or preventive care are the most common reasons they visit the vet. * The region also is a very active dog community, with 77% of local pet households owning at least one dog. Local dog parents called out dog parks, hiking trails and beaches as some of their favorite places to spend time with their pets, with places like Marymoor Park, Discovery Park, Alki Beach, and Rattlesnake Ledge in the North Bend area mentioned in Chewy's regional survey. Additionally, pet-friendly restaurants and breweries like Fremont Brewing and Old Stove Brewing Co. were among places dog parents mentioned enjoying with their pets. * Seattle pet parents also enjoy socializing with their pets, with 72% saying that seeing someone out with a pet makes that person seem more approachable, and more than half say their community has become more pet-friendly over the past year. * 37% say they spend more on their pet's health than on their own. Stats like that, including the high percentage of dog owners, plus Chewy's corporate presence in the market, and customers' love of the brand makes the area a natural place for Chewy to establish its first Northwest Vet Care office, Malhotra said. "The type of pet owner that's in this area spends a lot of money on their dogs, especially the dogs' health - they care a lot about health and wellness - so I think both of those things were also very interesting factors in us... wanting to come here," said Malhotra, adding the company is "really excited to be part of the community and serve all the pet parents that live in the area." With Redmond's opening, Chewy Vet Care now has 24 locations in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Texas, and Washington. The company also purchased Modern Animal Inc. this year, which has 29 clinics, primarily in California, with 20, and Texas, seven, a deal Chewy called an important strategic step in its evolution into a fully integrated pet healthcare ecosystem, combining care, commerce, and services across the pet lifecycle. When the deal was announced in April, Chewy said in a news release that Modern Animal adds a scaled, tech-enabled in-person care model that accelerates Chewy's clinic expansion and complements its existing health, pharmacy and Chewy Vet Care capabilities. In its 2025 fiscal year ended Feb. 1, 2026, Chewy Inc. reported $12.6 billion in net sales, spanning all of its categories. In its latest financial report, Chewy's fiscal second quarter that ended Aug. 2, the company reported triple-digit revenue growth for Chewy Vet Care, according to an earnings call transcript. Malhotra joined Chewy in 2018 to build Chewy Pharmacy, now America's No. 1 pet pharmacy, and went on to build Chewy Health into a multibillion-dollar business spanning pharmacy, pet insurance, virtual care, B2B technology, online education and now, in-person veterinary care, according to the company. Prior to 2018, Chewy was primarily a food and supplies company for pets, Malhotra told 425 Business. It launched the pharmaceutical business in 2018, delivered through e-commerce, "and very quickly realized that as customers think about their pets, where you buy pharmacy is one dimension of health, but really, there is this entire continuum of care that's underserved for pet parents, and nobody was stepping in and solving the problem of total healthcare accessibility and affordability from a pet parent perspective," she said. "That's when we established Chewy Health, which is our healthcare vertical, which aims at making pet healthcare affordable and accessible for everyone." Under that banner, Chewy then built its telehealth platform, compounded medications, pet insurance - all in the digital realm, she said, "and then as we kept building all these things, we realized, the next best extension would actually be physical care, because really, telemedicine and telehealth can only do so much because pets can't speak." They need to be examined physically, she said. "We have everything around the pet and we have sort of care continuum, which is very convenient for customers, but if we can actually take (it to the) physical world and... deliver good care there and start to solve problems both for customers and vets, what could that look like?" she said - "and I think that was our sort of vision for Chewy Vet Care." The company, which opened eight Chewy Vet Care clinics in 2024 and 10 last year, said it wants to open about 10 to 15 annually, Malhotra said, emphasizing a disciplined approach of quality over quantity - one that ensures establishing good experiences for clients and care teams.

Chewy is focusing on pet health services, artificial intelligence, and customer spending expansion to fuel its next growth phase, CEO Sumit Singh said at a Goldman Sachs conference. Singh described pet health as a $50 billion market, including $12 billion to $15 billion in products like medications and supplements. Chewy entered the health category in 2018 and is now the largest pet pharmacy in the US, capturing roughly $0.70 of every dollar moving online in pet medications. Over the past six years, Chewy added approximately $9 billion in incremental revenue, with about $4 billion coming from Chewy Health, according to Singh. Singh noted that consumer demand for discretionary pet products has softened since March and April. However, trends have since stabilised, with food and medication businesses remaining strong.