Groceryshop day 3: Human needs vs. artificial intelligence

We made it to the third and final day of Groceryshop. Here are some notable things we heard before recycling our lanyards and taking a much-deserved break from the word “omnichannel.”

The conference has been buzzing about Instacart after it made its stock market debut on Groceryshop’s first day (the stock jumped 40% on Tuesday, but slumped the next day), so seats were filled on Thursday to hear from Instacart COO Asha Sharma. She couldn’t say much about the IPO, at risk of being dragged into “IPO jail,” Groceryshop’s VP of content Joe Laszlo joked, but she did share one thing: “Thank you to all of our retailers and our advertisers who helped us get to this moment. There's no place I'd rather be except with our partners right now.”

Sharma also discussed recent innovations at the company, including the Ask Instacart feature it introduced in May, which uses generative AI to answer shoppers’ questions. The tech has required “untraining” consumers who have gotten used to searching for keywords rather than speaking whole questions, but it’s seen growing adoption and conversion rates, Sharma said. Overall, she noted that for grocers, a focus on engagement with consumers is key.

“We are in a juncture where we should not be thinking about 2% changes; we should be thinking about step changes, because that is where the industry is going; that is where the technology is going,” she said.

While generative AI generated a lot of excitement at the show, Esi Eggleston Bracey, president of Unilever USA and CEO, personal care at Unilever North America, underscored how important individuality and prioritizing human needs, even niche ones, is to the CPG giant. “Gone is the one size fits all,” Bracey said.

When Unilever pinpoints the needs of smaller groups, it can also meet an “unexpressed” need of “a broader group of people,” Bracey noted. Specific successes in this strategy include Unilever’s Shea Moisture scalp collection, which targeted consumers with textured hair but was embraced by a wider swath of shoppers with dry scalps, as well as Knorr’s partnership with Cardi B, selling Taste Combo meal kits highlighting Hispanic flavors that Bracey said sold out in less than 24 hours. Bracey’s ultimate advice for CPG brands: “Lean into people.”

“Don’t start with an agenda,” she said. “Start with people. And I say people and not consumers, because when you identify the human needs, you tap into the essence of what is going to be disrupted to drive the business.”

And with that, Retail Brew is signing off from Sin City, but fear not—we’ll be back with more takeaways from the conference and chats we had here in the days to come.