Rudy Lai
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AI @ Unilever

Consumer staples (Dove, Hellmanns, Persil)
Industry
Last updated
July 3, 2025 at 10:44 AM

Summary

  • Unilever has progressively integrated AI across its R&D, supply chain, marketing, and consumer engagement from 2023 through 2025, focusing on innovation acceleration, sustainability, personalized experiences, and operational efficiency.
  • Key initiatives include the launch of an AI lab in Toronto, use of AI digital twins for faster and cost-effective content creation, scaling of AI-powered influencer marketing to multiply growth, and advanced social listening for real-time consumer insights across multiple markets.
  • Leadership including Steve McCrystal (Chief Enterprise and Technology Officer) and Esi Eggleston Bracey (Chief Growth and Marketing Officer) highlight AI's role in increasing marketing ROI, cutting costs, and enabling Unilever's strategic Growth Action Plan 2030 to dominate global consumer packaged goods using various AI maturities from traditional to generative and some agentic AI components.

VIBE METER

More AI announcements = more VIBE
Q1 23Q2 23Q3 23Q4 23Q1 24Q2 24Q3 24Q4 24Q1 25Q2 25Q3 25πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯πŸ”₯

6 AI Use Cases at Unilever

Social Listening
2025
Customer Facing
Traditional
Generative
Agentic
Outcome
Unilever uses AI-powered social listening to analyze consumer sentiment and social signals in multiple languages to detect viral trends and respond dynamically with optimized supply chain and marketing tactics. [1][2]
Workforce Optimization
2025
Traditional
Generative
Agentic
Outcome
Costs
AI solutions are deployed in talent attraction and selection processes to efficiently identify best fit candidates among thousands of roles, enhancing HR functions. [1]
Content Creation
2025
Customer Facing
Traditional
Generative
Agentic
Outcome
Costs
Unilever deploys AI digital twins and generative AI tools like Google’s Veo 3 and its own Gen AI Content Studios to rapidly create high-quality, culturally relevant product imagery and social-first marketing content. [1][2][3]
Personalized Marketing
2024
Customer Facing
Traditional
Generative
Agentic
Outcome
AI enables Unilever beauty brands to deliver hyper-personalized consumer experiences and leverages conversational AI to translate consumer feedback into actionable insights for targeted marketing. [1][2]
Product Development
2023
Traditional
Generative
Agentic
Outcome
Revenue
AI and big data biology are used to optimize existing food products and accelerate the development of new ones by predicting product performance and improving R&D cycles. [1][2]
Supply Chain Optimization
2023
Traditional
Generative
Agentic
Outcome
Costs
Unilever employs AI and IoT to enhance supply chain sustainability, inventory management, and responsiveness to external factors like weather, improving efficiency and reducing waste. [1][2][3]

Timeline

2025 Q3

4 updates

Advanced AI implementations scaling influencer marketing by 10-20x for product virality, launching AI-driven design units to create social-first content rapidly, enhancing social listening strategies for real-time consumer response, and digitizing operations with digital twins and conversational AI for comprehensive consumer insights.

2025 Q2

1 updates

Initiated AI and IoT pilot programs to innovate cleaning food systems in supply chains, enhancing operational efficiency and sustainability.

2025 Q1

7 updates

Adoption of AI digital twins for product imagery accelerated content creation and cut marketing production costs significantly, while AI embedded in personal care R&D and supply chain digital transformation enhanced innovation and operational responses to external factors.

2024 Q4: no updates

2024 Q3

3 updates

AI leveraged extensively in R&D for faster product development, business efficiency improvements via Accenture partnership, and end-to-end value chain digitization for brand availability and sustainability.

2024 Q2

2 updates

Implemented AI to create hyper-personalized consumer experiences in beauty brands and used AI to assess product shelf life, texture, taste, and line performance before factory production.

2024 Q1

1 updates

Expanded AI and digital solutions to improve accessibility of shopping experiences and explore blockchain for sustainability.

2023 Q4

2 updates

Unilever established AI ethics frameworks and opened its AI innovation lab in Toronto to accelerate AI adoption and collaboration.

2023 Q3

2 updates

Focused on AI integration in supply chain for sustainability and innovation and leveraging AI and big data biology to optimize food portfolio and accelerate product development.

2023 Q2

1 updates

Unilever began publicly highlighting AI as a key driver for scientific discovery, design progression, and supply chain resilience.