Closing the AI gap: How CPG brands can unlock growth and efficiency

AI isn’t a future-state conversation for CPG brands. It’s already reshaping how products are discovered and purchased.

But most CPG organizations are stuck in a strange middle ground with high awareness and low execution. Leaders know AI matters — they’re experimenting, they’re investing. But very few have actually embedded it into how their business runs.

That gap is starting to show up where it hurts most: growth, margins and ultimately, valuation.

We compiled learnings from Bain & Company, McKinsey, Deloitte, PwC, Infosys and more to better understand where CPG companies stand with AI implementation today, the effect of action vs inaction and why connecting insights may be the key to unblock barriers. 

Here’s what we found.

TL;DR: The AI action gap will determine which CPG brands win with consumers

• CPG shareholder returns have been cut in half — investors are punishing digital laggards (Bain).

• 90% of execs think about AI, but only 6% have a value-creation plan (Bain). 

• From the marketing side: 70% expect AI to help, only 13% have it in widespread use (BCG).

• Only 35% have implemented gen AI (Infosys). 

• 71% report talent scarcity, with consumer insights among the hardest skills to find (Infosys).

• Nearly 70% of CPG companies are consolidating insights under a Chief Growth Officer — unifying siloed functions into a 360-degree view (BCG).

• Companies that adopt AI in marketing see 25–40% faster workflows, 2x speed to market and up to 50% ROI improvement (BCG).

• The risk: AI-mediated shopping could shut out brands that don't adapt (Bain). 

• 68% of retail execs expect agentic AI deployment within 24 months (Deloitte).

CPG companies aren’t just lagging — they’re being outpaced across the board.

Compared to tech, healthcare, retail and financial services, CPG has been slower to adopt the digital technologies that have fundamentally reshaped how those industries operate (Bain & Company).

And the result is showing up clearly in shareholder returns. This isn’t just about slower growth, it’s about declining confidence.

Margins are under pressure and multiples are shrinking. Investors are signaling something more fundamental: price-driven growth isn’t convincing anymore.

💡Takeaway: The market is questioning whether the traditional CPG playbook still works. And right now, the answer looks uncertain.

On paper, CPG leaders are aligned with the broader market: AI is a priority.

In reality, the numbers tell a different story.

• 90% of CPG executives say they’re thinking about AI (Bain & Company)

• Only 6% have a clear plan to create business value from it (Bain & Company)

• Just 37% rank generative AI as a top-five priority, compared to 84% in other industries (Bain & Company)

Even within marketing, the gap is obvious. 70% of leaders expect GenAI to improve speed and efficiency (BCG).

But only 13% say it’s fully integrated into workflows (BCG).

So what’s going wrong? 

There’s been a sharp increase in AI prioritization at the C-suite level, but most organizations struggle to connect AI initiatives to concrete financial outcomes. 

💡Takeaway: The value is there, but most companies haven’t operationalized it. They’re observing the opportunity instead of capturing it.

Despite this momentum, actual implementation remains limited. Pilots are everywhere. Proven, scalable value is not.

This is where companies stall:

• Moving from experimentation to execution

• Scaling successful pilots across teams

• Building repeatable systems, not one-off wins

Only about 35% of CPG companies are actively deploying generative AI solutions (Infosys). The majority are still in planning stages, running isolated pilots or doing nothing at all.

That’s a problem, because the early results are strong. More than half of AI use cases in CPG are already delivering tangible business value, especially in marketing and product development

And the upside is significant. Long-term, transformative investments in AI and digital capabilities could unlock up to a 15-point improvement in EBITDA margins (McKinsey).

💡Takeaway: As AI reshapes commerce, marketing and supply chains simultaneously, companies that stay in “pilot mode” will fall behind. 

Here’s where many CPG organizations get it wrong: they focus on spreading AI across the business instead of embedding it deeply where it matters.

Yes, 71% of CPG leaders report using AI in at least one function (McKinsey). But that stat hides the real issue that most of those implementations are surface level.

Common applications include:

• Product development: Analyzing consumer data and trends

• Supply chain: Forecasting, inventory optimization and waste reduction

• Marketing: Content generation and personalization

Where AI could have the greatest impact is on consumer insights and customer and channel management.

The companies that will pull ahead aren’t the ones with the most use cases. They’re the ones that treat AI as infrastructure — a core operating layer that connects decisions across the business.

💡Takeaway: This isn’t about adding AI to workflows. It’s about rebuilding workflows around AI.

As we mention above, the greatest opportunity lies in connecting insights. 

If AI is the engine, data is the fuel and most CPG companies are still running on disconnected tanks. But that’s starting to change.

CPG CMOs are increasingly consolidating consumer insights and commercial data into unified systems. In fact, “insights and analytics” now ranks as the most important capability marketing leaders plan to build over the next three years, ahead of content and media (BCG).

The shift is structural:

• Siloed insight functions are being unified

• Global teams are setting shared frameworks and AI capabilities

• Local teams are executing closer to the consumer

The goal is simple: create a real-time, 360-degree view of growth drivers. And AI is what makes this possible at scale.

It’s also changing operating models. More companies are:

• Bringing insights and creative capabilities in-house

• Building global hubs with localized execution

• Reducing reliance on external partners while increasing dependence on technology (BCG)

But this shift comes with urgency. AI is already influencing how consumers discover products and how retailers make decisions:

• Shoppers are starting to use AI tools for product discovery

• Retailers are using AI in supplier negotiations

• Agentic AI is emerging as a gatekeeper in purchase decisions

💡 Takeaway: If your brand isn’t optimized for these systems, it risks being filtered out entirely. This is the next competitive battleground, not just being chosen by consumers, but being chosen by algorithms.

The CPG companies that will win aren’t just the ones using AI, they’re the ones connecting their data and acting on it faster than everyone else.

That means breaking down silos between:

• Innovation data

• Advertising performance

• Brand tracking

• Consumer and shopper insights

And bringing it together into a single, connected system that informs decisions in real time, not weeks or months later.

Leading companies are already moving in this direction, building centralized insight functions that deliver a continuous, 360-degree view of performance and opportunity.

Companies still relying on fragmented research, static reports and slow insight cycles aren’t just behind, they’re operating with a fundamentally outdated model.