Imagine a scenario where a customer walks into a Walmart shop and instantly thirty screens with 4K video displays spring to life in synchronised colour, providing highly personalised messages that inform their purchase decisions. Halfway around the world, an advertiser’s campaign instantly modifies its bidding strategy in response to millions of data signals without requiring human intervention. Chaitanya Kumar Seri is the man responsible for these incredibly likely amazing experiences.
“How do 76% of buying decisions occur in the store, and yet advertisers can’t speak with consumers at that point of purchase?” What started out as an effort to address a simple issue has grown into a multibillion-dollar ad tech juggernaut. Seri didn’t just take advertising online; he transformed it by developing methods so inventive that they seem to predict what consumers will want before they even realise it.
From Engineering Roots to AdTech Innovation
Engineering served as the foundation for Seri’s foray into advertising technologies. He worked at Robert Bosch, where he designed embedded safety systems for airbag control and auto-braking, while studying Electronics and Communication Engineering in India. These and other mission-driven innovations served as the foundation for his approach to developing scalable technological solutions.
While pursuing his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (ranked 39th in the world), he was inspired. At that time, he had an interest in advertising and product management since he believed that technology might benefit both businesses and users.
During his early years at Tech Mahindra’s Global Leadership Cadre, where he worked on developing solutions for recommendation systems, streaming services, and context targeting, Seri was introduced to cutting-edge ad technology. He gained the foundational knowledge that would serve as the basis for his AdTech career from this first exposure.
Revolutionizing Retail Advertising at Walmart
Seri initiated his revolutionary effort within Walmart in the role of Product Lead for Ads. Knowing 76% of buying occurs within stores, he observed a massive gap in the market that disappointed advertisers and consumers alike.
He introduced a groundbreaking concept: flipping 100,000 in-store fixtures at 5,000 locations into dynamic ad space, building the United States’ largest retail chain of DOOH screens. Not only did this provide digital ad space for availability, it transformed how brands interact with customers at the point of buying decision.
The pièce de résistance was the TV Wall Ads system- cutting-edge 4K video ads on 30+ synchronized screens in more than 5,000 stores. Using this technology, brands were able to design engaging experiences to build product awareness, track seasonal trends, and remind consumers about price changes in real-time within stores.
The effect was immediate and dramatic. Seri’s project provided a multi-million-dollar stream of fresh revenue to Walmart and positioned Walmart as a retail media giant. The success gained broad industry acclaim with centerpieces in first-rate publications such as The Wall Street Journal and AdWeek. Most importantly, it proved Seri’s capability to dissect marketplace requirements and develop cutting-edge, high-scale solutions that address quantifiable business goals.
Besides TV Wall innovation, Seri also introduced end-to-end advertising solutions in Walmart. They comprised display ads on more than 70,000 self-checkout lanes, sponsored ad experience on the Walmart app, search-sponsored product-linked Walmart Cash coupons, and video ads on check-in page for curbside pickup orders. Every product had specific customer journey touchpoints, ranging from awareness and consideration to ultimate conversion.
Innovating AI-Driven Automation at Amazon
Now a Principal Product Manager at Amazon Ads, Seri has translated his vision to a global scale with a clear mission to make campaign setup, management, and optimization easier with the latest artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. His project at Amazon is the future of advertising tech where science-driven, predictive systems replace human approaches to intelligence and automation.
One of Seri’s greatest accomplishments at Amazon has been creating Smart Event-Based Bid Rules. This computerized tool radically improves how advertisers operate campaigns during high-volume retail shopping holidays such as Prime Day, Black Friday, and Diwali. This technology substituted 8-12 hours of human input with intelligent, programmatic actions using product, shopper, and performance signals.
The intelligence of the system is not just automation. Advertisers can define manual rules, intent rules, or complete agentic AI-based rules fueled by deep learning and explainability-fueled generative AI for recommendations. Multi-layered solutions enable the system to deliver campaigns with simplicity, complexity, and intelligence, so all possess enhanced advertising optimization abilities.
Its commercial success has been outstanding. It has established a whole new multi-million-dollar product category that is now well known publicly through Amazon Ads and deployed internationally across over 20 different marketplaces. Its global deployment demonstrates that Seri can consider beyond single markets and design solutions with genuine global scalability.
The 4R AdTech Framework: A Strategic Philosophy
What distinguishes Seri from the majority of product managers in the ad business is his methodical approach to learning and solving hard problems. He has built what he refers to as the 4R AdTech Framework that offers a methodical approach for thinking through effective ads on any platform and channel.
The plan breaks up winning ads into four columns: the Right Content with personalization engines, the Right People with accurate targeting, the Right Time through understanding seasonality and peak shopping times, and the Right Place through planning omnichannel experiences in store, curbside, app, and desktop.
This approach is also now the basis of Seri’s product development strategy, influencing the way he develops new ad formats, develops automation solutions, and brings solutions to hundreds of markets. It demonstrates his capacity to develop scalable models of innovation. It’s a crucial capability for leaders at scale.
The architecture goes beyond operation considerations to enable return on investment for publishers in responsible sales lift models and enables ongoing compliance with increasingly sophisticated data and privacy legislation. This end-to-end approach demonstrates Seri’s understanding that best-in-class advertising technology requires meeting performance, privacy, and regulatory compliance demands in balance.
Technical Innovation and Intellectual Property
Seri’s focus on innovation also translates into authoritative intellectual property development. He has applied for a U.S. patent (USPTO Publication no.: 20250037473, date of filing: 2023) under the title “In-store traffic measurement in TV wall section using security cameras and computer vision techniques.” His patent for computer vision-powered impression measuring in DOOH advertising serves as evidence that he can innovate in ways that go beyond the technical boundaries of retail media measurement.
The patent is just one of numerous trends across Seri’s work: bringing bleeding-edge technologies such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to practical, commercially applicable advertising solutions. His work consists of emerging interactive ad formats with novel solutions, channel-agnostic campaign platforms, computer vision-based impression measurement, and advanced sales lift and omnichannel attribution models.
Global Impact and Commercial Success
When taken as a whole, Seri’s product introductions provide overwhelming proof. His product launches have generated around $1 billion in advertising revenue, which demonstrates both the success of his company and its influence on the global market. The figure reflects not only the creation of dollars but also the establishment of industry standards and new market segments.
His portfolio touches on multiple ad forms and mediums: Walmart’s original video TV ads, impact-ier TV Wall synchronized 4K video ads, in-channel Digital Out-of-Home displays, connected TV (CTV) ad forms, placement-driven streaming platform ads such as for Netflix, sponsored interactive ad forms, shoppable video products, dynamic creative solutions, and retail-native brand narrative forms.
Seri’s extensive knowledge of the advertising industry, his ability to create value for both advertisers and consumers, and his ability to set industry standards are all demonstrated by his experience across formats, platforms, automation, and measurement.
Leadership Philosophy and Management Style
Seri’s leadership philosophy is a derivative of his engineering degree and business school experience, crossing analytic rigor with strategic thought. He leads himself on three principles as a leader: clarity, empowerment, and fact-based decision making. His experience is that leaders are successful by getting groups to work together towards a clear vision and then empowering them to drive execution within that vision.
This philosophy was successfully used to drive sophisticated, multi-functional initiatives. To roll out Walmart’s Store Ads platform, Seri succeeded in getting the privacy, engineering, revenue, and store operations teams to work together towards a shared objective and also provide each team with autonomy to implement in its area of expertise. His application of systematic decision frameworks that balance customer value, advertiser ROI, feasibility, and revenue opportunity guarantees equity and stakeholder trust.
Most impressive is Seri’s dedication to “leading by influence, not authority.” At Walmart and at Amazon, he has developed cross-functional collaboration between legal, engineering, and design teams through openness and issue-solving conversation. The very same philosophy is applied to mentoring inexperienced product managers, with a goal of enabling others with templates instead of prescriptive feedback.
Balancing Innovation with Personal Growth
In addition to the requirements of high-product-leadership positions, Seri has also created a learning and self-advancement culture. He has been certified in Artificial Intelligence and Applications of Machine Learning and Product Management at Cornell University and Welch Way courses in Operational Excellence, Innovation and Agility, and Creating a Winning Strategy.
After working and staying in different places for five years in India, two years in New York, six years in the Bay Area, and now Seattle, he has formed a global perspective through extensive global experience. All of these enhance his capacity to create goods of international scale and understand a variety of market conditions.
Seri achieves balance through having organized personal routines, such as regular physical routines like running and weightlifting, which he attributes to keeping him smart and dynamic. His blending of work and life is consistent with his overall philosophy of creating lasting systems that can make both professional success and personal wellness feasible.
Vision for the Future of Advertising Technology
According to Seri, ad technology of the future will have an open, quantifiable, and customer-focused lens that enhances user experiences rather than detracts from them. He is particularly excited about the applications of generative AI-generated ad creative, agentic AI systems to optimise self-run campaigns, and computer vision for measurement in retail settings.
His default is cracking tough problems at the intersection of technology and advertising, i.e., the reinvention of advertising as a value exchange that informs customers about applicable products while allowing brands to expand sustainably. The size of possible impact in this area continues to motivate his innovation work, from reaching more than 220 million weekly Walmart shoppers through in-store advertising to streamlining campaigns on billions of daily Amazon auctions.
A Digital Age Leader
With digital technology unfolding at a speed never before imagined in the annals of human history, leaders such as Seri embody the intersection of time-honored retail commerce and the AI-driven future of customer interaction. His blend of technical acumen, vision, and ability to act makes him an archetypal pioneer in the wake of an industry transformed at its very foundation.
The journey of Seri, a former embedded systems engineer who became a global advertising technology leader, is proof of the power of continuous learning, strategic thinking, and innovation that has customers at its center. His work has not only built robust economic value but has also raised standards for brands and retailers on how they should interact meaningfully with customers across various touchpoints.
Seri is a leader who recognises the business need and technological promise of capturing innovation in an era of technological convergence that is reshaping entire industries. In the end, his story is one of leadership inspiring others while achieving measurable results, of vision realised as impact, and of difficult situations resolved with grace.
Seri is positioned as a visionary leader who will continue to be important in brand and consumer engagement in the future of an increasingly digital environment. He’s committed to creating scalable, accountable, and customer-focused solutions in the ever-evolving ad technology field.
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