AI Isn’t the Story—It’s the Accelerant

When you zoom out, CPG looks simple: make products, sell products, advertise products.

But as Bas van Kesteren (GM of Opella E-commerce, ex-Reckitt, ex-Unilever) told me on Reimagine With AI, that story is over.

What’s really happening is a complete rewiring of how CPGs grow. And AI isn’t the headline act—it’s the accelerant.

Here are the shifts Bas sees shaping the next decade:

Retail media is the new rent

What used to be “brand spend” is now “share of search.” Dollars are flowing to Amazon, Walmart, Carrefour—not TV networks. AI makes this shift faster by automating targeting, personalization, and attribution. The exec who still thinks retail media is just a “tax” is already behind.

Your catalog is broken

Most SKUs in CPG weren’t designed for digital shelves. Poor imagery, clunky descriptions, inconsistent data. Bas is blunt: “the catalog is not e-commerce proof.” AI won’t fix bad foundations—but it can help rebuild assortments designed for how shoppers actually browse and buy online.

Retailers aren’t retailers anymore

They are media companies, data companies, and insights companies—all at once. The balance of power tips toward platforms because they own the consumer interface. CPGs can still win—but only if they accept they’re negotiating with an ecosystem, not a buyer.

Innovation must become a flywheel

Forget the 3-year NPD pipeline. TikTok trends like Dubai Chocolate can go global in 18 months. AI lets CPGs track demand signals in real time, spin up MVPs, test, and scale. The companies that build an “AI-enabled innovation flywheel” will own demand spaces faster than humans in a boardroom ever could.

Discipline beats hype

Bas’s advice: don’t chase every shiny new AI tool. Keep 70% of the org focused on executional excellence, 20% on scaling proven ideas, and only 10% in true experimentation. That’s how you avoid the hype cycle’s “valley of despair” and actually embed change.

My Reflection

What struck me most in this conversation was Bas’s insistence that AI is not a hammer in search of nails—it’s a way of lowering the “cost of effort” on use cases we already know matter.

That flips the script. Instead of treating AI as a magic wand, leaders should treat it as a margin unlock: the same jobs, now done faster, cheaper, and more creatively.

For CPG executives, the challenge isn’t whether AI is ready. It’s whether your org is ready to adopt, scale, and discipline itself for what comes next.

🎧 Watch the full conversation with Bas here:

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Imteaz & the Applied Intelligence team