What CPG Vendors Must Do to Stay Relevant in an AI-Led, Results-Driven Environment

The relationship between grocery retailers and their CPG vendors is entering a transformative phase. Over the next five years, the traditional model of relationship-driven sales and trade promotion will give way to something fundamentally different: a more automated, insight-led, and performance-oriented partnership.

This isn’t about incremental improvement. It’s about rethinking how vendors show up, how they add value, and how they build trust in an increasingly digital, data-rich retail environment.

The Future Is Already Speaking—Are You Listening?

At the top of this article is an image titled “Things Retailers Will Still Be Telling Their Vendors in 2030.” What’s striking isn’t just the demand to be more data driven and easier to do business with—it’s the timeline.

The top three quotes, reflect a vision of a fully agentic, insight-led retail environment. You may not hear them in person today—but you will by 2030. Phrases like “Your agent’s recommendation outperformed our own model, so we’re running with it” might feel futuristic, but they’re coming fast.

In contrast, the bottom three quotes, highlighted in green, are things leading retailers have already been saying for years. These aren’t predictions. They’re expectations. The gap between the top and bottom of this image isn't just about time—it's about vendor readiness.

From Relationship-Driven to Results-Driven

Historically, many vendor-retailer relationships thrived on personal rapport, negotiated trade deals, and annual joint business planning. These elements won’t disappear, but they’re no longer sufficient on their own.

Retailers are under mounting pressure to optimize every inch of shelf space and every dollar of promotional investment. In return, they will increasingly evaluate CPG partners based on tangible outcomes—not good intentions.

Vendors who rely on charm, legacy relationships, or one-size-fits-all solutions will struggle to remain relevant. A new breed of vendor is emerging—one that brings data, predictive insights, and measurable business impact to every interaction.

Data Will Be the New Currency

Retailers are investing heavily in their own data ecosystems—from loyalty programs and digital receipts to shelf cameras and eCommerce analytics. But they don’t just want more data—they want better decisions.

CPG vendors will be expected to deliver precise, credible, and timely insights: how a new item will drive category growth, how a promotion will generate incremental volume, or how a shift in shopper behavior warrants a planogram reset. To that end, Walmart’s Data Ventures is re-branding and launching a subscription service, Scintilla formerly known as Luminate, to deliver an integrated insights ecosystem that both commercializes their data but also enable near real-time data and a set of agile tools to make better decisions.

The vendors who thrive will operate more like consulting firms—with internal capabilities in data science, shopper insights, scenario modeling, and AI-enabled decision tools. The ability to generate insight is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s the new language of business.

Sales Teams Will Be Augmented, Not Replaced

There’s a myth that AI will make the sales rep obsolete. The reality is more nuanced.

Sales teams will still play a critical role—but their day-to-day will change dramatically. Reps will act as orchestrators of cross-functional expertise, using digital tools and AI agents to prepare, present, and negotiate with precision.

Instead of chasing down internal data or approvals, they’ll walk into meetings with dynamic dashboards, predictive simulations, and curated next-best-action recommendations.

Retailers won’t want salespeople who just “check in” and report category growth versus YAG. Think of it this way: if your brand’s results and recommendations aren’t available on-demand to the buyer, you’re already at a disadvantage. They’ll want vendor partners who show up as consultants—ready to co-create solutions in real time.

Retailers Will Interact With Outcomes, Not Just People

One of the most profound shifts is that grocery retailers will increasingly prefer to interact with systems—portals, APIs, and recommendation engines—over people.

Buyers will log into platforms to review vendor performance, upcoming promotions, and recommendations before scheduling a single meeting. In the past, some of the same information was made available to the vendor sales teams in the form of a report. Now, leading retailers are deploying agents and super agents focused specifically on optimizing the performance of the vendor community.

If your brand’s performance data and proposals aren’t accessible on demand and soon “always-on” and available to agents/bots, you’re already at a disadvantage.

This isn’t theoretical. As Suresh Kumar, Walmart’s Chief Technology Officer and Chief Development Officer, recently said that so many agents were already live that:

“It became very clear that we could dramatically simplify. If I have an agent that helps you with your payroll and I have a different agent that helps you with identifying merchandising trends, you shouldn’t have to remember that and switch between those two.” —Suresh Kumar, WSJ, July 28, 2025

Let that sink in. Walmart already has so many live agents that it’s reorganizing them. Meanwhile, many vendors haven’t activated a single one. That contrast is the call to action.

Execution Will Become a Differentiator

Selling the plan is no longer enough. Execution—in-store and online—will be just as important as strategy.

Retailers will monitor compliance using real-time POS and mobile audit platforms (photo capture and data transformation). And they will act swiftly when vendors underperform.

Those who invest in predictive retail execution, PicOS, “perfect store” retail execution platforms, and agile field teams will stand out. Execution will become a competitive advantage, not just a cost center.

Collaboration Will Become More Agile and Targeted

Joint business planning won’t go away—it will evolve.

Instead of annual, static presentations, retailers will expect continuous collaboration powered by shared data, real-time simulations, and rapid test-and-learn capabilities.

Winning vendors will bring customizable promotions, modular content, and localized insights that enable same-day responsiveness and faster deployment.

What CPG Vendors Must Do Now

To stay relevant and competitive, manufacturers must act now. Here are five essential steps:

Invest in Data Infrastructure: Build or partner for access to clean, actionable data. Integrate retailer and internal data streams. Upskill Sales Teams: Train reps in data storytelling, retail analytics, and AI co-pilot tools. Automate the Basics: Free up human teams from reporting and compliance so they can focus on strategy and value creation. Build Retailer-Facing Tools: Make it easy for buyers to see your impact—digitally, self-serve, and in real time. Drive Flawless Execution: Monitor shelf conditions, improve field agility, and build accountability at the store level.

Final Thought

The next five years will reward the vendors who evolve quickly—those who realize that data, technology, and flawless execution now matter as much as relationships and negotiation skills.

Retailers aren’t looking for sales reps. They’re looking for solution partners—people and their supporting agents who deliver outcomes, anticipate needs, and move at retail speed.

Will your team be ready?

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Originally posted on LinkedIn on Aug 12, 2025; https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:ugcPost:7361052239177658369/

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