commonsku Appointed a Chief AI Officer: Here's What That Actually Means for Distributors

The promotional products industry is changing fast. AI is no longer a buzzword or a future consideration. It's here, and everywhere we look, distributors are asking real questions about how it fits into their business; from reps experimenting with ChatGPT to ops wondering if there's a faster way to handle order entry, and to artwork teams looking for efficiencies in formatting.

Maybe you've tried a tool or two yourself. Some stuck, most didn't.

The honest reason most AI tools don't stick with distributors? They weren't built by anyone who understands how promo actually works: the supplier lead times, the decoration methods, the complexity of each task you complete daily.

That's the gap we're closing, and why commonsku has promoted Bobby Lehew to become our first Chief AI Officer. Bobby will own the intelligence loop between our customers, our product team, and the AI landscape, making sure our AI tools are shaped by what distributors need as we build towards an AI-first future for the promo industry.

What makes this role unique? It combines AI landscape intelligence, product strategy, direct customer engagement, and industry thought leadership in a single seat. No other company in promotional products has anything like it.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

We’ve been on the receiving end of a lot of questions from distributors.

• "How can AI save my team time on quotes and orders?"
• "Will AI replace my sales reps?"
• "What AI tools actually work for promo distributors?"
• "How do I know which AI features are worth adopting?"

These are the questions this role has been built to answer.

If you're a commonsku customer, you now have a dedicated leader whose job is to make sure AI works for your business. Expect more conversations, more focus groups, more opportunities to shape what we build.

If you're watching commonsku from the industry, this is our signal: we're not just adding AI features. We're investing at the leadership level to make sure AI is developed with the distributor at the center of every decision.

The AI Tools Already in Motion

This isn't a future promise. commonsku's AI investments are live and growing:

• Find customized products for your clients, based on their order history, with AI Product Recommendations
• Cut your mockup turnaround time from hours to seconds with the AI Mockup Generator, already in beta with Advanced and Enterprise customers
• Know what opportunities are hiding in your own data. commonsku’s Opportunity Agent is about to enter beta as an AI-powered business intelligence tool
• Description Rewriter, Auto-Art Configuration, and Presentation Generator are all on the near-term roadmap to save you valuable time building your client forms, without sacrificing customization.

Bobby's role ensures every one of these is built with direct input from the people using the platform every day.

What Bobby brings to the table

Three decades in this industry, former CEO of Robyn Promotions; and one of the first distributors to build a technology-driven company store model, with three consecutive Inc. 5000 rankings. He's been thinking about the intersection of technology and promo for his entire career.

At commonsku, he built an exceptional content engine, hosts the skucast (350+ episodes, the #1 promo podcast), and created the AI Promo Brief — the go-to resource for AI developments in promotional products. At PPAI Expo 2026, his AI session was named a must-attend by PPAI editors and packed the room to capacity (fire-marshall-escorting-people-out level of packed to capacity).

But here's what matters more than the resume: Bobby approaches AI as someone who has run a distributorship, knows the margin pressure, knows the client relationships, and knows where the time actually goes.

What’s Next?

Bobby is running small-group AI roundtables for commonsku customers. If you want a seat at the table to tell us what's actually broken, what you've tried, what would change how your team works, reach out directly using the form below.

This is the room where the roadmap gets shaped. Distributors who show up here will see their problems reflected in what we ship.

commonsku has always been built by promo, for promo.
That remains unchanged; your workflow just got a lot smarter.

Request a Seat at an Upcoming AI Roundtable