Artificial Intelligence — The ::esther:: Initiative | Henry Schein

Over nearly four years, I led ideation, research, and product design for ::esther::, an AI conversational agent built to sit at the center of Henry Schein's Global eCommerce Platform (GEP).

The name honors Esther Schein, the co-founder's wife, whose work ethic and authentic way of communicating became a cultural cornerstone of the company. ::esther:: was designed to carry that same spirit into a digital experience, less a chatbot, more a knowledgeable, empathetic guide built to understand natural language, forecast needs, and support both customers and internal teams.

The work spanned the full system, not just the AI layer: I defined the strategic goals and use cases, mapped the underlying architecture (data sources, AI models, request flows) in collaboration with engineering, and designed the end-to-end experience, from conversational search and personalized product recommendations with transparent reasoning, to proactive hyper-personalize dashboard alerts that surface savings, budget risks, and approvals before a user has to ask. I also built ::esther::'s tone of voice and visual identity as part of a broader Global Brand Operating System (BOS), a design system built to stay consistent globally while adapting to local markets.

::esther:: advanced through an executive-approved discovery and prototype phase, developed in close collaboration with digital agency Code & Theory, validating the concept, interaction model, and technical feasibility as a foundation for future development.