The rapid advancement of AI technology is transforming our world, moving from the stuff of science fiction to becoming an integral part of our everyday lives.
From the emergence of tools such as ChatGPT, Bard and other generative AI technologies, we have witnessed a cultural phenomenon in recent months of industries looking to innovate their offerings with these new technologies.
In the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) space, in particular, brands are looking to AI to transform retail execution (REX) processes to make them more streamlined and optimised to modern data-driven working practices.
This is where Neurolabs' very own AI-driven shelf auditing assistant ChatCPG comes into play. It sets out to redefine how CPGs, Field Marketing Agencies (FMAs) and Sales Force Automation vendors (SFAs) move from insight to action during REX operations.
This article will introduce Neurolabs’ ChatCPG and explore why this new AI technology is a must-have for brands that want to maintain a competitive edge.
What is ChatCPG?
ChatCPG is a game-changing solution designed to empower brands and marketers in mastering perfect store execution. This revolutionary, AI-driven shelf auditing assistant technology covers every aspect of store planning and auditing, from ensuring shelf compliance to analysing product availability, prices, competitors, and more.
Instead of painstakingly manually analysing predefined dashboards, ChatCPG harnesses the power of image recognition (IR) data captured from in-store visits and applies an intelligence layer on top of the data. From here, it utilises natural language processing technology to provide immediate, detailed and accurate responses to user questions in plain English. For example, suppose a user wants to learn more about the recent performance of items in a region rather than devise a complex series of filters to compare performance. In that case, they can simply ask ChatCPG a question such as “How was shelf performance last week in stores across London?”.
With ChatCPG, you can get instantaneous store insights without manually sifting through complex dashboards. With ChatCPG, you can access our highly effective generative AI in retail technology to provide fast and reliable answers to most of your shelf auditing questions.
It really is a "must-have" AI tool in the CPG industry that makes everything faster, simpler, more personalised and insightful for the busy CPGs, FMAs or SFAs.
Why is AI in retail and ChatCPG such a big deal?
What makes ChatCPG so revolutionary is that it fundamentally changes how users, such as Perfect Store managers and field sales managers, etc., engage with shelf auditing data infinitely more dynamically. Unlike transitional solutions that rely on a more static approach to leverage insights on REX, ChatCPG takes data analysis to a whole new level.
Instead of analysing REX through the predefined dashboards, ChatCPG harnesses the power of image recognition (IR) data captured from in-store visits and applies an intelligence layer on top of the data. From here, it utilises natural language processing technology to provide immediate, detailed and accurate responses to user questions in plain English.
In essence, the technology paves the way for end-users to consume insights in an innovative way and rapidly respond to a wide range of data-led queries.
The benefits of ChatCPG
ChatCPG offers numerous benefits across various activities, such as shelf compliance, product availability, price analysis, competitor analysis, and promotional display compliance. These benefits include;
Makes granular data insights more discoverable
ChatCPG is built on Neurolabs’ ZIA and designed to use its output as input data to power the generative AI in retail. This means that it is tailored to automatically understand ZIA's shelf auditing and retail execution language and interpret shelf KPIs such as out-of-stock, planogram compliance, the share of shelf, shelf availability, etc.
Unlike traditional methods that require manual coding, ChatCPG eliminates the step where the SFA partner needs to hard-code and predefine vital REX metrics. With ChatCPG, users are able to define their own KPIs on the fly, allowing for a more dynamic approach to market and product analysis.
In practice, this means that users can more effectively communicate and ask questions using natural language, enabling them to ask more in-depth questions than a standard analytics dashboard could provide. This, in turn, empowers users to be more strategic in their analysis with seamless access to all the information they need to back up their decisions.
Subsequently, ChatCPG makes it easy to uncover REX insights quickly and gain a competitive edge.
Instantaneous access to REX insights
ChatCPG offers users a remarkable advantage in both speed and accuracy when it comes to leveraging the insights gathered from shelf auditing. By using ChatCPG, users can quickly see the results of shelf audits, saving them valuable time by eliminating the need to manually search through databases for answers.
Additionally, ChatCPG provides more accurate results compared to relying solely on human observation and interpretation of spreadsheet data. This is particularly important, as human interpretations can be prone to errors due to factors like time constraints, team members' lack of data literacy, or training limitations.
This is vital as REX teams prioritise speed and efficiency in ensuring that the data collected can be acted upon promptly. Additionally, they require accurate and in-depth non-real-time data for strategic analysis and data science work.
For instance, users can quickly inquire about product availability using ChatCPG, allowing the generative AI to swiftly identify stores with stockouts. This removes the need for manual checks, providing users with immediate and precise information they can use for real-time in-store checks. It can also help with non-real time planogram and promotions analysis to spur long-term growth.
It can integrate with your existing REX technologies
If integrated with existing SFA tools (which connect multiple databases), ChatCPG can help highlight determinate causes of common issues like low stock availability across different store locations.
To use an illustrative example, users can ask, "Are stock levels in our Covent Garden store always running low on certain items?" and, provided your SFA tools can access historical, point-of-sale information, ChatCPG could provide the historical data related to that location to help you draw insightful conclusions from data.
This compatibility benefit means ChatCPG can help you optimise processes to become more cost-efficient, as it can offer marketing advice and helpful tips on effective REX strategies.
Artificial Intelligence in CPG industry: Simplify your shelf auditing
The transformative power of generative AI paves the way for greater efficiency and innovation in a wide range of industries, including CPGs. For shelf auditing specifically, technologies like Neurolabs ChatCPG can significantly streamline and simplify processes.
In addition, our cutting-edge AI-powered tools can enhance the quality of your shelf auditing experience, retail execution (REX) and trade promotion (TPx) strategies by improving the speed at which users can get accurate answers about their data. This is vital, as it can address some of the challenges in managing REX and TPx.
By integrating powerful image recognition tools with AI capabilities, ChatCPG empowers CPGs to make informed decisions and uncover valuable insights that may have been previously inaccessible due to time or data visibility constraints.
Simply visit our dedicated ChatCPG page and sign up to be among the first to access this revolutionary tool that unlocks new efficiency levels in your stores.
Experience the benefits of ChatCPG firsthand and elevate your shelf auditing practices by joining our waitlist today.
At Neurolabs, we are revolutionising in-store retail performance with our advanced image recognition technology, ZIA. Our cutting-edge technology enables retailers, field marketing agencies and CPG brands to optimise store execution, enhance the customer experience, and boost revenue as we build the most comprehensive 3D asset library for product recognition in the CPG industry.
