From Intel to L’Oréal to Samsung and more, every major player at CES 2024 had one thing in common: a bullish stance on AI. However, a gap emerged on the show floor between AI goals and actual AI-integrated products and tangible results. While several automakers announced plans to integrate generative AI into in-car experiences, and major brands revealed generative AI-powered chatbots and tools, many “AI-powered” innovations were simply AI-washing—products marketed as powered by AI that really weren’t.
What this shows is a golden opportunity for consumer products brands to differentiate themselves through not just true AI innovation, but AI that’s “people-first.”
There are three key problem areas in the consumer products industry where AI can make a definitive impact this year: workforce education and retention, individualization, and, finally, integrated customer and consumer journeys.
“While AI is just as big as the next industrial revolution, it’s really less about what our technology is called and more about what it can do for people: your employees, your customers and your consumers.”
— Sabrina McPherson, Senior Managing Director, Management Consulting, North America
The biggest opportunity for AI in 2024 is workforce education and retention. According to a first-of-its-kind economic study, generative AI could automate activities that take up 60-70% of employees’ time today. But the real value is in augmenting—not replacing—human workers, freeing them up to focus on higher-value work and creative problem-solving.
The challenge is that most organizations are still in the early stages of integrating generative AI into their workflows. Walmart, for example, is piloting generative AI tools to help store associates answer customer questions and manage inventory. But scaling these solutions across the enterprise requires more than just technology—it requires a new approach to employee experience design.
According to a Publicis Sapient survey, 70% of employees say they would use generative AI tools if they were easy to access and integrated into their daily workflow. But only 20% say their employers have provided training or support to help them use these tools effectively.
"The corporate-GPT challenge is frictionlessly threading new tools into employee workflow, which requires deep and holistic employee experience design. This isn’t an AI problem—it’s a human one."
— Sabrina McPherson, Senior Managing Director, Management Consulting, North America
The second biggest opportunity for AI in 2024 is individualization. For years, brands have been talking about the promise of one-to-one marketing, but the reality has lagged behind the hype. The main reason? Data. Most consumer products brands still struggle to access, process, and activate the data they need to deliver truly individualized experiences at scale.
Gartner predicted five years ago that 80% of marketers would abandon personalization efforts by 2025 due to lack of ROI, data management challenges, and the inability to connect data across channels. But generative AI is changing the game, making it possible to process massive amounts of data in real time and generate individualized content, offers, and experiences for every customer.
The key is having a robust data strategy in place. Brands need to invest in data infrastructure, governance, and privacy to ensure they can collect, process, and activate data in a way that is both effective and compliant with regulations.
"The key for consumer products brands is making sure air-tight data processing strategies are in place, so that brands can utilize the data that they do own through AI technology."
— Sabrina McPherson, Senior Managing Director, Management Consulting, North America
The third big opportunity for AI in 2024 is integrated customer and consumer journeys. The next wave of AI innovation will be about connecting the dots between devices, channels, and experiences—creating seamless, end-to-end journeys for consumers.
Google even predicts that the future of consumer technology will be defined by "multi-agent" systems, where multiple AI-powered devices and services work together to anticipate and meet consumer needs. At CES 2024, we saw the first signs of this future, with the Rabbit R1, Qualcomm, OliverIQ, and others showcasing new ways to connect devices and orchestrate experiences across the home, car, and beyond.
The challenge for brands is to move beyond siloed AI solutions and build technology ecosystems that can deliver integrated, people-first experiences. This requires new partnerships, new data strategies, and a relentless focus on the consumer.
"From what we’ve seen, the consumer brands that collaborate will position themselves for growth, and capture the digital consumer."
— Nathan Thompson, Senior Director, Consumer Electronics Lead, Consumer Products
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"The approach to building new generative AI tools looks similar to the approach to building other digital technology. It starts with a great concept, rather than starting with the technology and identifying value after."
— Sabrina McPherson, Senior Managing Director, Management Consulting, North America
Publicis Sapient is building AI solutions for consumer products firms, powered by our unique SPEED formula. Our approach combines strategic growth and business value, modern digital product thinking, next-generation customer experience, engineering, data and AI, all while leveraging our premier partnerships with Microsoft, Google, AWS, and OpenAI.
Senior Managing Director, Management Consulting, North America
Sabrina.McPherson@publicissapient.com
Senior Director, Consumer Electronics Lead, Consumer Products
Nathan.Thompson@publicissapient.com
Publicis Sapient is a digital transformation partner helping established organizations get digitally enabled, both in the way they work and how they serve their customers. We help unlock value through a startup mindset and modern methods, fusing strategy, consulting, and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity. As digital pioneers with 20,000 people and 53 offices worldwide, our experience spanning technology, data sciences, consulting, and customer obsession—combined with our culture of curiosity and relentlessness—enables us to accelerate our clients’ businesses by designing the products and services their customers truly value. Publicis Sapient is the digital business transformation hub of Publicis Groupe.
For more handpicked insights from our experts, visit https://guidetonext.publicissapient.com/outlook-2024/consumer-products