Firm says user base grew 26-fold since launching new strategy
David’s Bridal, the 76-year-old wedding-dress retailer, has built an AI agent called Pearl to handle wedding planning tasks from booking vendors to shifting dates when couples change plans — a shift Chief Executive Kelly Cook described as “a one-hundred-eighty degree pivot” for the company. The Pennsylvania-based chain has named the strategy “aisle to algorithm.”
The pivot rests on two new products, both powered by AI: Pearl Planner, an AI wedding-planning tool for brides, and Pearl Connect, an AI platform for wedding vendors. “We have the actual brides coming into our system,” President and Chief Business Officer Elina Vilk told The Wall Street Journal. “When they book their appointment, when they commerce with us on David’s Bridal dot-com, when they go through our surfaces, they’re sharing a lot of information that is unique to them.”
David’s Bridal built its own agentic AI orchestration system to run the planning tool, with a knowledge graph at its core. The company’s AI agent — also called Pearl — draws on first-party customer data, proprietary insights and research, and what Vilk described as real-world anecdotes from in-store stylists who have worked with brides.
Pearl can automatically change wedding dates, book vendors, and arrange appointments, according to the company. When a couple shifts the wedding date, Pearl adjusts the planning timeline and related to-dos. Vilk said the company uses a variety of AI models to power the agent and plans to integrate with Meta’s Muse agent.
The engineering work has been carried out by a team of fewer than 10 full-time developers, supplemented by outside technical help, with the team relying on agentic coding tools. “What would have taken one hundred-plus people before, we were able to do with just tens,” Vilk said. “There’s no way we could have achieved anything like this even three years ago.”
Since launching the new strategy, Vilk said, David’s Bridal has seen a threefold increase in customer engagement and a 26-fold rise in users. Vilk said AI has allowed the company to accomplish what she characterized as “four years of work in 18 months.”
Cook said the company kept its investment flat year-over-year as it scaled the new strategy, redirecting existing budget rather than adding new spending. “We just reallocated it to the newer strategy, so there wasn’t that much incrementality,” Cook said. “We moved it around to optimize Pearl.”
The broader tech and people restructuring began in 2022, Cook said, starting with AI for marketing and content before extending into operations. The company had also been using machine learning for match and promotion planning. As the tools mature, David’s Bridal is adding new “embedded tasks” inside Pearl — including a budgeting capability that adjusts recommendations based on where the wedding will be held. “We’re maximizing token usage probably every day,” Vilk said.
David’s Bridal filed for bankruptcy in April 2023, citing inflation and difficulty recovering from pandemic-related losses. CION Investment Corporation, a business development and asset management firm, later bought the retailer out of bankruptcy. The company had previously restructured in November 2018.