Gap enlists Google and Zeta in AI marketing push

Ashley Morgan • June 25, 2026 • 4 min read

Gap partners with Google Cloud and Zeta Global for an AI marketing push to deliver personalized content and reduce friction across its ecommerce channels.

Gap Inc. is rolling out an AI marketing overhaul in partnership with Google Cloud, Zeta Global and Publicis Sapient. The retailer wants to deliver more relevant content and cut friction across its ecommerce channels, according to a June 22 announcement. The effort will extend across all four of Gap’s banners: Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic and Athleta.

Sven Gerjets, Gap’s chief technology officer, said the transformation brings together data, AI and agentic capabilities to help the company better understand customer intent and move faster as an organization. The goal is to create what Gap called “more meaningful experiences” across its portfolio.

The overhaul builds on an existing partnership with Google Cloud. When the two companies first announced their agreement in October, they said it would give Gap a unified AI-powered platform to improve ecommerce, product creation and the overall customer experience. Gap ranks as No. 19 in the Top 2000 Database, which tracks North America’s largest online retailers by annual ecommerce sales.

Unveiled at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the transformation will start with Gap’s owned marketing channels. Those include its ecommerce sites, apps, emails, loyalty communications and direct customer messaging. The company said the overhaul is meant to turn 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 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 piece of the overhaul runs through Google Cloud. Gap is building a unified, AI-ready data foundation that ties together customer and product data. That should lead to 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, the retailer is using several Google tools: Agent Studio, Agent Engine, Gemini models, Nano Banana, and Veo.

Outside Google Cloud, Zeta Global will help Gap build a new AI-powered marketing stack. The centerpiece is Athena by Zeta, which the retailer described as an “intelligence layer” that links 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 company said.

In practice, Athena’s agentic AI capabilities can unify decisions across audience planning, creative production, campaign rollout and performance improvements. The aim is to launch more personalized experiences and deliver faster, more coordinated campaigns. Separately, Publicis Sapient will power an operating model to make marketing “more connected, measurable and responsive to customer behavior.”

Berger said Gap has always shaped culture, and now it has an opportunity to reshape how it shows up for customers in a faster, smarter and more personal way. The company set up a formal Office of AI in 2024, but the major piece of its strategy came the following year when it partnered with Google Cloud to use Gemini, Vertex AI and BigQuery.

During the 2025 holiday season, Gap introduced more personalized shopping features, including curated trend-based recommendations and a digital assistant on its sites and apps. In March, the retailer announced customers could 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 created with Shopify.

Gap also began working with Bold Metrics to roll out personalized size recommendations within AI interfaces. Gerjets said in March that the company is not pursuing AI for novelty — these partnerships are about solving real customer problems, like helping shoppers feel confident about fit and making it easier to complete a purchase.

The push comes after a mixed quarterly report. In fiscal Q1 2026 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 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, and softness in dresses at Old Navy, a category that over-indexes as an online business.

CEO Richard Dickson 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 all four banners alongside traditional rewards.

It is a busy moment for the retailer, which is trying to balance in-store gains with digital headwinds while betting heavily on AI to tighten the gap between customer intent and purchase.