Case study
Pioneering the world's first
AI-native CPG innovation engine
Working with a leading CPG company to create a sustainable competitive advantage with an always-on, autonomous innovation engine and AI-powered growth at scale
Our client is a global leader in consumer packaged goods with a broad portfolio spanning nutrition, health, and wellness solutions.
Challenge
Creating an innovation copilot that matches or outperforms human-only innovation
Our client, a global leader in the CPG space, wanted to stay ahead of the curve, respond to changing consumer needs, break down silos to innovation, and create better products with higher market hit-rates.
Our challenge was to improve hit rate and to help reduce time spent in innovation research and ideation from months to weeks.
Strategy
Develop an AI-powered, always-on innovation engine that delivers better products, faster
To meet this challenge, our strategy was to create an AI-powered engine that synthesizes current data (brand data, research data, social listening data, and more) to identify opportunities, creates hundreds of ideas to capitalize them, and then prioritizes those ideas based on synthetic personas.
Together with the client, we developed an AI-powered, always-on innovation engine that drives incremental innovation and grows market share, by amplifying and AI-powering internal innovation.
Outcome
AI-powered growth at scale with autonomous innovation engine
We’ve built the engine that will help our client explore growth spaces within personal care, uncovering consumer jobs to be done, and creating and rigorously testing AI-generated concepts before they hit the market – in record time.
The initial proof of value has generated a lot of internal buy-in and is driving C-level conversations around a broader transformation towards an AI-native operating model to truly capture the potential of autonomous innovation.
The business case projects an 8x ROI driven by increased sales and a 60% reduction in external vendor spend on NPD and shortening go-to-market cycles.
Challenge
Creating an innovation copilot that matches or outperforms human-only innovation
In today’s fast-paced world, consumer expectations are evolving rapidly. To win in an increasingly dynamic marketplace, new products need to address authentic consumer needs as they emerge, and companies need to rethink how they imagine and create new products.
A global leader in the consumer packaged goods space wanted to stay ahead of the curve, respond to changing consumer needs, break down silos to innovation, and create better products with higher market hit-rates. They approached us to address this challenge and to help them harness the full potential of autonomous innovation.
The big idea
Our client is pioneering an always-on, AI-powered approach to innovation, where the limits of human ingenuity are expanded by artificial intelligence.
With a complete understanding of consumer trends, production capabilities, and scientific insights readily available, their marketing teams can quickly identify and act on new opportunities. The intelligent autonomous innovation engine can ideate concepts, evaluate market opportunities, and provide creative guidance.
This not only speeds the products to market but also ensures that our client proactively addresses emerging consumer demands and launches products with higher market hit-rate, at record speed.
Strategy
Develop an AI-powered, always-on innovation engine that delivers better products, faster
The engine brings together consumer insights, scientific findings, and production capabilities, to create new and better products with a higher market hit-rate, in record time. The intelligent tool draws on the client’s proprietary data as well as external, public data sources, such as social listening on social media platforms. This integration enables an “always-on” capability for real-time insights, trend tracking, and rapid concept validation.
The engine rigorously tests the generated concepts, through synthetic testing with brand-specific personas and pre-defined parameters like purchase intent, ensuring that each generated concept aligns with market realities. This agile validation process ensures that new products undergo rigorous evaluation before reaching a user, let alone a shelf.
The initial proof of value has generated a lot of internal buy-in and is driving C-level conversations around a broader transformation towards an AI-native operating model to truly capture the potential of autonomous innovation.
Outcome
AI-powered growth at scale and a leap towards autonomous transformation
We’ve built the engine that will help our client explore strategic opportunity areas within personal care, uncovering consumer jobs to be done, and creating and rigorously testing AI-generated concepts before they hit the market.
Our client now has a dynamic, intelligent, AI-powered innovation asset at their fingertips, revolutionizing the way they seize strategic opportunities, break down innovation silos, and bring products to market – in record time. Innovation no longer sits in a siloed department, but is an integral part of all of the employees jobs, empowering and AI-powering them to generate incremental ideas and concepts that automatically account for the latest trends, consumer needs and brand strategies, and help fill in strategic gaps in brand portfolios. This capability and the management of the data also has unlocked the “always on” capability where users are prompted as new opportunities emerge. It’s a leap towards autonomous, strategic innovation.
+25%
Increase in product success rate*
*assumption based on initial test-results
6 brands, 2 categories, 3 markets
Scalable engine across markets/brands/categories at limited cost
- Improving the overall innovation success rate - leading to significantly higher average revenue per new product launch
- Achieving stronger, earlier validation of concepts across desirability, feasibility, viability and sustainability
- Streamlining incremental innovation projects in order to shift investment towards more disruptive innovation
- Proof of value autonomous innovation engine that supports 2 categories, 6 brands across 3 key markets
Discover other work
