dunnhumby Launches AI-Powered Assortment Tool

In Cincinnati, customer data science firm dunnhumby has launched a new assortment solution, which it says harnesses cutting-edge AI to revolutionize how retailers select products.

A part of British supermarket giant Tesco, dunnhumby employs more than 2,500 people in offices throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. A week ago it launched a new web-based tool called Competitive Threat Evaluator, which it says swiftly diagnoses the intensity and nature of a retailer's competitive threat and its pull on shoppers at the chain, geographic and store levels.

New AI-enabled features in dunnhumby Assortment include hyper-localized assortments, reflecting the fact that certain products perform better in some stores than others; and a new 'space-aware' planogram tool which provides shelf-ready layouts based on customer behavior insights and taking account of merchandising rules, physical constraints, and local health and safety restrictions. The tool also boasts a streamlined, end-to-end process allowing collaborative input from multiple teams throughout the assortment process.

Predictive models forecast what will happen to customer demand when products are introduced to or removed from an assortment. For example, the firm says removing a certain pack size or flavor of cookie will not necessarily reduce category revenue by its full sales value: the tool helps to predict how much of those sales would transfer to a similar remaining product in the assortment.

Julie Sharrocks, Head of Retail AI at dunnhumby comments: 'Retailers need to be able to understand customer needs - and which products are most likely to satisfy them - quickly and at scale. With decades of refinement behind them, the AI tools, and techniques that we've built in dunnhumby Assortment now allow retailers to do exactly that'.

Web site: www.dunnhumby.com .