It’s no secret that downtown San Francisco’s retail landscape is struggling.

Union Square, one of the city’s primary commercial hubs, has seen numerous retailers exit over the past few years. A short list includes Zara, The North Face, H&M, Gap, and Uniqlo. Barry DiRaimondo, CEO of commercial real estate developer SteelWave, didn’t underplay the struggles the city has faced but said it’s not entirely doom and gloom.

“A lot of the negative rhetoric surrounding San Francisco is probably a little bit more overblown than reality,” he told Retail Brew. “Having said that, I do think the retail industry, especially the high-end retail industry in San Francisco, has completely taken it on the chin.”

How’d we get here? San Francisco faced many of the same challenges other major cities’ retail districts faced during the pandemic. Work from home and office closures halted foot traffic, but in the case of San Francisco, more than four years later, DiRaimondo said its offices have not recovered, compared to other cities like New York.

Keep reading here.—KM

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Best Buy is planning to deploy a generative AI-powered virtual assistant to provide customers with a “self-service option” on its website and app, or via the old-fashioned customer service call.

The electronics retailer is developing the technology in partnership with Google Cloud and Accenture, and plans to roll it out later this summer. The announcement comes amid reports that Best Buy is laying off employees of its Geek Squad subsidiary, which provides hands-on technology assistance to customers.

The new virtual assistant will help customers troubleshoot product issues, as well as more standard customer service inquiries such as rescheduling deliveries and managing customer subscriptions and memberships.

Best Buy joins a growing list of retailers embracing GenAI to help bolster their digital customer experience.

Keep reading here.—AV

There’s sawdust on Madison Avenue. The Home Depot is giving its retail media network, first piloted in 2018, a renovation: Retail Media+ is now Orange Apron Media. Get the reference behind the new name? Great.

The idea behind the rebrand is to stand out in the ever-congested retail media landscape, Melanie Babcock, VP of Orange Apron Media and monetization at The Home Depot, told Marketing Brew.

Keep reading here on Marketing Brew.—RB

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