Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to prove its effectiveness in ecommerce, and one industry in particular has tremendous growth potential with this technology — consumer packaged goods (CPG).
McKinsey & Company reports that generative AI (GenAI) could unlock up to an additional $270 billion in profit annually for CPG companies globally.
CPG teams often face resource constraints, which can affect their ability to produce product content at scale, appear in search rankings, and build a brand presence.
Discover how AI can address these challenges, with real-life examples from leading CPG brands that have successfully leveraged this emerging technology.
As consumer and retailer demands grow, CPG brands must keep up with the level of high-quality and accurate product content needed for enhanced digital experiences — or they risk falling behind.
AI can help CPG companies combat inefficiencies and keep up with evolving data needs:
AI adoption is growing among CPG brands: According to a 2025 survey from NVIDIA, nearly 90% of respondents either actively use AI in their operations or are assessing AI projects in trials and pilots.
Here’s how top CPG brands Unilever and Mattel use AI to drive next-level growth.
According to Salsify’s “2025 Consumer Research” report, 39% of shoppers purchased a product online because a social media influencer recommended it. Millennials (48%) and men (48%) are the most swayable groups for this discovery channel, highlighting the importance of a top-notch influencer strategy.
Unilever decided to lean into influencer marketing recently in the hopes of gaining virality for its products like Dove soap, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ). Providing the company’s vast influencer network with promotional assets was a monumental task — one that AI was better suited to handle.
“We’re now deploying thousands of assets a week across our brands, compared to single digits over months,” says Steve McCrystal, Unilever’s chief enterprise and technology officer, in the same WSJ article.
AI also allows Unilever to leverage and repurpose user-generated content (UGC) faster on its own social channels.
As AI becomes more ingrained in consumers’ daily lives, they’re looking for their favorite brands to adopt it as well, especially when it comes to holiday shopping.
According to Salsify’s “2025 Holiday Pulse Report,” 50% of shoppers believe that AI tools like chatbots and gift guides would improve their holiday shopping experience. Millennials (63%), Gen Zers (56%), and Gen Xers (52%) are especially in favor of AI holiday shopping tools.
Mattel has embraced this idea in a unique way, collaborating with OpenAI, an AI research and development company, to create AI-powered Mattel toys and experiences. The global toy and family entertainment company is also incorporating OpenAI’s tools like ChatGPT Enterprise into its business to enhance product ideation, creation, and audience engagement.
Salsify’s Intelligence Suite, an AI tool within its product experience management (PXM) platform, is designed to help customers leverage the power of AI to unlock efficiency, scale productivity, and drive growth.
Users can scale AI adoption and drive measurable growth with automated activities, AI-powered workflows, and embedded intelligence and custom AI models rooted in industry best practices and real-world expertise.
Salsify is collaborating with customers to unlock faster growth across every product experience, harnessing the power of AI to help them scale with impact.
Here are three top use cases that highlight how Intelligence Suite can help CPG brands thrive on the digital shelf.
Creating and optimizing product content can be a time-consuming task that diverts a lot of time and attention away from other crucial revenue-driving activities. It can also cost a significant amount to hire an agency to do these tasks for you.
Salsify’s Intelligence Suite can help CPG brands get to market faster and reduce manual labor with capabilities like translating or localizing content, running seasonal content updates, and optimizing for keywords or certain shopper personas.
Is it difficult to find your assets in your product information management (PIM) solution? Do your product images lack alt text, resulting in poor discoverability?
With the Intelligence Suite, CPG brands can turn unstructured data into structured text. For example, AI can analyze images and recommend metadata tags and alt text, and extract product claims from packaging or datasheets.
Data quality is paramount for a positive shopping experience, especially since 77% of shoppers surveyed in Salsify’s “2025 Consumer Research” report say that product titles and descriptions are “extremely” or “very” important when deciding to complete a purchase.
The Intelligence Suite drives data governance and improves data quality by conducting spelling and grammar checks, performing find and replace, or giving AI-generated recommendations on what content may be out of compliance based on your brand style guide.
CPG brands can alleviate friction and position themselves as leaders by adopting an AI-curious mindset.
“If digital shelf teams prepare now by collecting the right data, training AI solutions with the right information, and partnering with leading brands to run pilot programs, they can become the leaders of this new world,” says Rob Gonzalez, chief strategy officer and innovation officer and co-founder of Salsify, in his whitepaper “The PXM AI Manifesto: How AI Transforms Product Experience Management (PXM), the Digital Shelf, and Your Career.”
Unilever and Mattel are great examples of companies doing exactly that.