Appel Addresses How Artificial Intelligence and Actual Intelligence Will Power Future Growth
CHICAGO— March 12, 2019 — At the annual IRI® Growth Summit, which attracts the CPG industry’s leading marketing and data innovators, IRI president and chief executive officer Andrew Appel today discussed his views on data and technology as the next enabler of competitive advantage. In keeping with the conference theme — “Powering the Path Forward” — Appel addressed the importance of investing in data infrastructure and artificial intelligence (AI), as well as voice and machine learning technologies that will drive growth.
“Companies in our ecosystem are looking at data and technology as the next enabler of competitive advantage — in creating speed, consumer intimacy and process efficiency,” said Appel. “Every major company in our industry is increasing their investment in the space, knowing that mastering the technology of tomorrow is one of the most important levers of competitive advantage.”
As part of his keynote address, Appel discussed automated insights, augmented decision making and decision automation as transformative processes with significant implications for business operations. While acknowledging that increased automation may bring uncertainty, Appel stressed that automating simple tasks is essential for keeping up with the accelerating evolution of consumer preferences and ultimately bringing about applied change.
Appel advised IRI clients to “embrace and add new capabilities. Take risks and do it at speed. Be comfortable and confident enough in the augmented and automated decisions that you no longer have to be the guarders of the information.”
IRI has invested nearly $1 billion in its technology over the past several years to enable its solutions to automatically identify market opportunities and proactively provide recommendations to clients to enable decisions.
About the IRI Partner Ecosystem
IRI fundamentally believes that delivering differentiated growth for clients requires deep, highly integrated partnering with a variety of best-of-breed companies. As such, IRI works closely with a broad range of industry leaders across multiple industries and sectors to create innovative joint solutions, services and access to capabilities to help its clients more effectively collaborate and compete in their various markets and exceed their growth objectives. IRI is committed to its partnership philosophy and continues to actively enhance its open ecosystem of partners through alliances, joint ventures, acquisitions and affiliations. The IRI Partner Ecosystem includes such leading companies as 84.51°, Adobe, The Boston Consulting Group, Clavis Insights, comScore, Data Plus Math, Edison, Experian, GfK, Gigwalk, Google, Ipsos, Jumpshot, Mastercard Advisors, MaxPoint, MFour, Omnicom, One Click Retail, Oracle, Pinterest, Research Now/SSI, Simulmedia, SPINS, Univision, Viant and others.
About IRI
IRI is a leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers, financial services and media companies grow their businesses. A confluence of major external events — a change in consumer buying habits, big data coming into its own, advanced analytics and personalized consumer activation — is leading to a seismic shift in drivers of success in all industries. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated on an on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI is empowering the personalization revolution, helping to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers, collaborate with key constituents and deliver market-leading growth. For more information, visit www.iriworldwide.com.
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IRI Contact:
Shelley Hughes
Email: Shelley.Hughes@IRIworldwide.com
Phone: +1 312.474.3675