Building on the success of our inaugural event, this year's summit was designed to go deeper: more time for peer-to-peer conversation, deeper partner participation, and an agenda shaped around the topics our clients raise most often, from CRO and retention to international expansion and AI.
Welcome Reception
A welcome reception was held the evening of Tuesday, September 22 at the Soho Grand Hotel, with cocktails and a quick bite as guests settled in from their travel days.
The Space
Inside the Shopify space, we "curated" a museum-style exhibition featuring products and work from across the Domaine portfolio, bringing the brands represented in the room into the physical experience of Curated itself. A separate fashion installation highlighted work from across our fashion and apparel portfolio.
Morning Sessions: Setting the Stage
The day began with breakfast and check-in at Shopify NY, followed by welcome remarks from Domaine's VP of Marketing, Chelsey Heppler.
The opening panel, The Future of Commerce: Domaine's Perspective, was moderated by Domaine's President, Marko Bon, and featured Director of Retention Stacy Strom, Director of UX Katie Baligod, VP of Engineering Johnnie Regalado, and VP of Design Trey Hardin. Drawing on insights from hundreds of brand engagements across strategy, customer experience, technology, marketing, and design, the group unpacked how AI and shifting customer expectations are reshaping commerce, and what leading brands are prioritizing as a result.
Next, Building Client-Agency Partnerships That Drive Long-Term Growth brought together leaders from across the Domaine portfolio and our delivery team to explore what separates a successful project from a long-term strategic partnership, from shared ownership to clear communication and cross-functional collaboration.
The morning closed with a fireside chat, AI & Operational Excellence: Lessons from Inside Shopify, where Domaine COO Jineane Ali sat down with Lawrence Mandel, VP of Engineering at Shopify. Their discussion offered a candid look at where AI is creating meaningful leverage inside Shopify, what the company has learned from putting it into practice at scale, and how those lessons are shaping the way it builds for the future.
New This Year: Brands-Only Roundtables
For the first time, Curated made space for smaller, brands-only conversations. Each session was facilitated by a Domaine leader alongside two of our sponsors:
Roundtable: CRO & Experimentation
Quote from Client: “There is no universal CRO best practice. The strongest experimentation programs use data to understand what works for their specific brand, audience, and customer journey — especially as the role of [the brand website] expands beyond the conversion itself.”
Led by Sachin Bhargava, Senior CRO Strategist at Domaine with Visually and Recharge. This roundtable compared how brands are evolving their experimentation programs, balancing promotion with experience, and deciding where personalization and AI can actually make an impact.
Roundtable: CRM, Customer Retention & Loyalty
Quote from Client: “Retention is becoming less about individual channels and more about the full customer relationship. Brands are looking at how CRM, loyalty, AI, and first-party data can work together to personalize the post-purchase experience, anticipate customer needs, and create more relevant reasons for customers to come back.”
Led by Stacy Strom, Director of Retention at Domaine with Loop and Klaviyo. This roundtable explored how brands are connecting CRM and the site experience, getting smarter about segmentation, and treating every customer interaction, including what happens after the purchase, as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.
Roundtable: International Expansion
Quote from Client: “International expansion isn’t just an ecommerce challenge. The storefront may be the easiest part — success depends on aligning technology, operations, inventory, finance, legal, marketing, and the broader organization.”
Led by Katherin Bednarz, VP of Delivery, and Jineane Ali, COO at Domaine with Global-e and Tapcart. This roundtable explored how brands are considering international growth today: where they’re seeing opportunity, what creates the most complexity, how they decide when deeper localization is worth the investment, and what they’ve learned along the way.
Roundtable: AI & Operational Efficiency
Quote from Client: “AI can get teams 80% of the way there quickly, but scaling it reliably requires solving for the final 20%. The brands making progress are moving beyond individual prompts toward structured workflows, specialized agents, quality-control loops, and human oversight.”
Led by Johnnie Regalado, VP of Engineering at Domaine with Shopify and Gorgias. This roundtable explored what the next phase looks like in practice: where AI is creating real operational leverage today, how teams are moving from assistance to action, what they’re choosing to automate or build, and how the role of ecommerce and engineering teams may evolve as these capabilities become embedded in the platforms they already use.
Roundtable: AI & Discoverability (GEO)
Quote from Client: “There is no established GEO playbook yet, and being mentioned isn’t the same as being recommended. Brands are focusing on the fundamentals — structured data, authoritative content, third-party signals, and continuous testing — as they learn what actually drives AI visibility and favorability.”
Led by Milo Farley, Director of Delivery at Domaine, with Yotpo and Vercel. This roundtable explored how brands are approaching GEO today, from technical readiness and content strategy to reviews and third-party signals, measurement, and the difference between simply appearing in an AI response and actually being recommended.
With half of this year's topics centered on AI, the roundtables reflected just how quickly priorities have shifted since our first Curated, when conversations focused largely on personalization, international growth, and site design.
Afternoon Sessions: Scale, Craft, and Commerce in Action
The afternoon opened with How to Scale Your Brand Across Global Markets. Domaine's Mac King, CRO, joined client leaders to discuss what going global really involves beyond launching new storefronts: localization, governance, operational complexity, and the lessons learned from scaling across markets.
In Human by Design: Creating Distinctive Experiences in the Age of AI, leaders from across Domaine, Pattern, and our client portfolio explored why speed alone isn't differentiation, and how brands can embrace AI-enabled efficiency while preserving the storytelling, craft, and human judgment that make great ecommerce experiences stand out.
Next, VP of Accounts Allie Hincks hosted Commerce in Action, a rapid-fire series of lightning talks spotlighting innovative commerce experiences delivering real business impact.
Brands then headed back out for their second round of roundtables.
Closing Keynote
The day's programming concluded with How to Lead Change at Enterprise Scale, a keynote conversation between Marko Bon and Catherine Ok, VP of Consumer Technology at The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC). Framing digital transformation as much an organizational challenge as a technical one, Ok shared lessons from leading a Shopify transformation at one of the world's largest and most complex retail organizations, from building executive trust to navigating resistance and driving lasting change.
Evening: Happy Hour, Dinners, and a Nightcap
Guests stayed on at Shopify NY for happy hour and hors d'oeuvres before heading out for intimate dinners at some of SoHo’s best restaurants. For those not ready to call it a night, late-night cocktails followed.
Our Partners
Curated 2026 was hosted by Domaine and Shopify, and sponsored by Gorgias, Loop, Yotpo, Global-e, Klaviyo, Bloomreach, Visually, Swap, Signifyd, Recharge, Tapcart, Constructor, Siena, and Vercel.
Closing
We look forward to continuing the Curated tradition next year. Looking to get in touch with our team? Reach out to us here.
