How Unilever is building an AI-first enterprise at scale

In this Q&A, Unilever’s Chief Digital & Technology Officer, Sam Kini, explains how Unilever is applying AI at scale across the business value chain to drive real impact for our 3.7 billion consumers.

What defines an AI-first organisation, and what gives Unilever a competitive advantage in this new era?

Becoming AI-first is one of the three foundational pillars of Unilever’s business transformation. For us, technology is at the core of value creation, with AI as the digital backbone, helping us generate demand faster, turn data into actionable consumer insights, respond to market shifts with greater agility and unlock value company-wide.

At Unilever, we apply AI across three distinct areas:

• To drive growth and build the foundations for the future of commerce
• To build an intelligent enterprise across the value chain, embedding AI across our core processes and the way we work
• To equip our people with the right tools and make AI an essential part of everyday work

Our competitive advantage is built on trust – in our brands, our customer relationships and our data. This gives us a strong foundation to innovate, as consumers already recognise and value what we stand for.

How is AI changing the future of commerce?

Some 3.7 billion people use our products every day, that’s roughly half the world’s population.

But the traditional path to purchase is changing. AI is increasingly shaping the entire shopping journey – making the experience more agentic and conversational – and transforming how people discover, compare and buy our brands.

Research from McKinsey shows that 50% of shoppers use AI to discover and compare products, while Bain & Company estimates that the US agentic commerce market could reach $300–500 billion (€260–433 billion) by 2030, making up roughly 15–25% of e-commerce.

And that means rethinking the way we work, from innovation and product content to fulfilment, structured data and retailer collaboration.

To serve today’s consumers, our brands need to be designed for both people and algorithms, so they become the most trusted answer in an AI‑mediated marketplace.

How are you bringing this AI-first strategy to life?

We’re turning intelligence into a growth engine. AI-ready data is closing the gap between insight and action, helping us generate demand faster, be more agile in our response to market shifts and create a differentiating competitive advantage that’s delivering impact across our value chain.

3 ways AI is driving value-creation

How is AI reshaping how Unilever builds, measures and maintains trust?

We have iconic household brands that are part of everyday life for millions of consumers. That trust, combined with our scale, is a unique advantage as we move into the AI age. AI is not a substitute for product quality, science or consumer trust. It’s raising the bar.

Our innovation process has always started with the consumer and understanding their needs. Today, our Beauty & Wellbeing R&D teams use AI to analyse up to 1,000 data sources every month, drawn from social, search and retailers, tapping into consumer behaviours that enable product development teams to act quickly on emerging trends.

Unilever’s success has long been driven by world-class science at the heart of our brands. And today, demonstrated superiority and evidence-backed credibility matter more than ever to both humans and algorithms. We are turning strong, structured data into a machine-readable engine. For example, in Beauty & Wellbeing, our claims generation process is now 75% faster.

What do organisations need to do to thrive in an AI-first future?

At Unilever, we are combining the pace of innovation with strong governance to deploy AI responsibly at scale.

Success in the AI era requires both speed and care, which is why we are taking a holistic approach across our people, culture and technology on how we deploy it.

As technology becomes widespread, it’s people and processes that become the real differentiators, underpinned by leaders who role-model this transformation.

To date, we’ve trained over 40,000 of our employees to use AI. Putting the I in AI strengthens both business performance and the way we work every day.

The future of enterprise AI will not be defined by the technology itself. It will be defined by what we, as humans, choose to do with it. And that means preparing our organisations to scale AI with trust, speed and impact.

Frequently asked questions

• What does it mean to become an AI-first organisation?

  An AI-first organisation embeds artificial intelligence into core business processes, decision-making and operating models, moving beyond pilots to enterprise-wide deployment. This requires strong data and cloud foundations, scalable platforms and a workforce equipped to work alongside intelligent systems.

• What role do data and cloud infrastructure play in scaling AI successfully?

  Robust data and cloud foundations are critical for scaling AI. High-quality, connected data enables accurate insights, while cloud platforms provide the flexibility and computing power needed to deploy AI solutions across geographies and functions. Together, they ensure AI can move beyond pilots to deliver consistent, enterprise-wide impact.

• What is agentic AI, and why is it important for enterprises?

  Agentic AI refers to autonomous or semi-autonomous AI systems that can plan, execute and optimise complex workflows with minimal human intervention. For enterprises, it has the potential to transform productivity by orchestrating tasks across systems, reducing manual effort and enabling faster, data-driven decision-making.