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- [00:00]
A
In today's CPG landscape, growth hinges on something deceptively simple how well your product shows up, not just on the shelf, but everywhere. A shopper might search, scan, compare or buy. And as AI reshapes how decisions are made from discovery to purchase, the brands that win are the ones building a product foundation strong enough to anchor them, yet agile enough to respond to shifting markets, new requirements, and rising shopper expectations. This is where product experience management earns its name. It's the discipline of showing up accurately, consistently and contextually wherever your shoppers are. When your product data is complete and connected, the noise falls away. Teams shift from rework to refinement, from is it correct? To Is it compelling? And that clarity is what's fueling the shift across the CPG industry, pushing teams past scattered content and siloed systems toward a comprehensive end to end solution that makes the work of managing product experiences easy. Top CPG brands, including Dole, Chomps and Unilever, as well as 90% of leading US retailers, partner with Syndigo to deliver accurate, engaging and compliant content across every channel on the world's largest product experience network, from data syndication, rich content, ratings and reviews to pim, MDM and Agentic Commerce. See what Syndigo unlocks for you@ Syndigo.com CPG Again, that's Syndigo.com CPG My name.
- [01:41]
B
Is Simon Angove and I am the CEO of Syndigo and you are listening to the CPG Guys Podcast.
- [01:48]
C
Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. Set at the intersection of commerce and tech. Your hosts, Sree Rajagopalan and Peter V S? Bhan explore how brands and retailers engage consumers in a digitally driven world. And now, here are the CPG Guys. Hello and welcome to the CPG Guys Podcast. I'm your whimsical co host, pvsb, who also moonlights as head of industry and client engagement at Flywheel, the commerce acceleration division of Omnicom, which is now the world's largest advertising holding company. My co host, you know him as the patriarch of the Raj family media empire. His daughters Rhea and Lara are legitimate entertainment sensations. His wife, Kavita runs her own podcast, Lights, Camera, Conversation. And as for Papa Raj, as his daughter's fans refer to him, well, in addition to podcasting, he serves as the CRO of Think Blue Consulting. He's also the former Chief Customer Officer at General Mills. SRI can't join us today as he's following his pop star daughters on tour. Up until Christmas, I've had the pleasure of attending both the Cat's Eye concert in Boston brought my daughter Nadia along and more recently the New York City event for Rearraj. Make sure you're subscribing to our podcast on your preferred listening platform, Apple, Spotify, or wherever you can get our latest episodes and even go back and consume some of the 550 plus episodes we've already released over the last four five and a half years. Boy, has it gone fast. Looking forward to 2026 Q1's shaping up to be a very busy time for the CPG guys. In addition to appearing at some corporate year beginning meetings, you should expect to see us at quite a number of industry events including Are you ready for this ces, NRF Big show, fmi Midwinter, Cagney, Etail Palm Springs, socom Live, Commerce, Media, Brand Summit, and Shop Talk. Wow, that is a mouthful. We'll be recording episodes, throwing some parties, hosting private dinners. If you do see us, don't be shy. Please introduce yourselves as we love to speak with our community of industry thought leaders. All right, so let's get to today's guest in the era of global omnichannel marketplaces where digital content frankly influences 100% of the customer journey from awareness to conversion and data complexity makes it increasingly hard for brands and retailers to deliver winning consumer experiences, it is vital to deliver consistent content and digital shelf performance, efficient product syndication and supplier retailer collaboration. Syndigo is a leader in product experience management, Master Data management and product Information management, providing AI native data management product experiences for brands, retailers and their customers. With the most extensive integrated network of content distribution available, Syndigo is the single solution for the journey to data confidence and success. Whether an enterprise needs to establish a single source of data truth within the organization or distribute it to an external network for more efficient commerce, Syndigo is the partner to make it happen, joining us to share our all of the latest issues facing brands in the era of agentic commerce and how Syndigo is positioned to help brands win. Is the CEO of Syndigo. I met him in January 2025 when I had the distinct honor of speaking to Syndigo, Sales Associates and Ecosystem Partners at their annual kickoff meeting. Simon Angov has been CEO since 2022 after a successful career as a leader, entrepreneur and investor with a passion for starting, leading and growing technology oriented firms both organically and through acquisition. Please let me welcome for his first appearance on the CPT Guys podcast, Simon Ango. Simon, Greetings.
- [05:45]
B
How you doing man? I'm doing great. Great to be here and have this discussion with you, Peter.
- [05:51]
C
Yeah, we're really looking forward to this. I'm sorry Sri couldn't join. I know he was. He was very, very sorry that he wasn't going to be able to participate, but I'll do my best to cover in his stead. I know we're going to have a very lively conversation. I should probably start by mentioning that my point of market entry, it's a very familiar industry POMI term for the world of digital shelf actually happened in 2018 when I joined Power Reviews, a leading user generated content company that Syndico recently acquired as part of One World Sync. So I'm a little bit dangerous in this area, Simon, so forgive me if we double click down on a couple of things, but I know it's going to be fun. Anyone listening today who wants to learn more about Simon and Syndigo, just toggle over to the digital show notes of this episode where you're going to find hyperlinks to Simon's LinkedIn page, his own PDP, or what I call the Personal Detail page, the human version of the Marketplace pdp, and also Syndico's corporate sites that you can multitask and learn more about them as our conversation unfolds. So let's get to our questions. Let's kick it right off, Simon. Syndigo operates in the world of Product Experience Management, or pxm. For folks who might not be familiar, what are we talking about when we use that term?
- [07:12]
B
Yeah, so when we talk about PXM Product Experience Management, it's really about controlling every aspect of how a product is presented and experienced by consumers across every channel and touchpoint. You know, it's about having the right data about the products you're selling, and also about making sure that data is accurate, consistent and compelling, whether that person is shopping online, browsing a mobile app, or standing in a store aisle. And at the foundation of PXM is product content. Now what do we mean by that? When we talk about product content, we're talking about everything from the essential facts like ingredients, colors and weights and measures to images, feature bullets, multimedia like videos, and even user generated content like social posts or ratings and reviews. And why does this matter? Because today's consumers want seamless, frictionless, complete, consistent, accurate product experiences. And if that product information is wrong or it's incomplete, or it's inconsistent across channels, it completely erodes trust and can instantly derail a purchase. And we've all personally had that moment right when we're ready to buy. But something doesn't Add up, you go online, there's a missing image, a confusing description, or you go into the store to pick up the product, but the product on the shelf doesn't look like what you saw on the product description page or in ad. And so then there's a moment of hesitation, right. A lost sale, a lost opportunity to convert a sale and build loyalty. And it's all almost entirely preventable. So our mission is to help brands and retailers not just manage all of this product content, but truly curate experiences that are consistent, they're complete, they're compelling, they engage and they convert. And Syndigo provides all of the technology and expertise to make that content right, get it to the right place in the right format as fast as possible. Whether that's a retailer website, an app, or a physical in store shuffle. And you know, in our view, at the end of the day, your product experience is your product. Right. They're inseparable and we need to start treating it accordingly.
- [09:32]
C
You know, Simon, thank you for that. It's, there's a little unpack there. Because when I think about what you said, referring to the content and people walking into a store after seeing the content, that kind of talks to my point about, you know, the path to purchase is 100% influenced by digital. And if you think that people are just doing e commerce or they're just doing physical store purchasing, consumers are engaging throughout their journey with both the physical and the digital, or we'll call it the phygital. Right. And, and that's why it's so important. And when you think about particularly scaled brands that may have thousand plus products in their, in their catalog and they're working across hundreds of marketplaces that there are so many touch points where that content is critically important for every single product to, to succeed on its own merits. And it sounds like you're recognizing that through product experience management. Brands today have so many levers to pull. They've got advertising, they've got social media, the packaging is paramount. Real estate, retail media to amplify the products that they've introduced into the marketplace. Why should they be thinking about product experience right now? Why is it so important at this critical phase in the commerce journey?
- [11:01]
B
Right. Yeah, 100%. Right. It's a great question. I think it gets to the heart of what's really been changing in commerce. As you said, the reality is that shoppers today are moving seamlessly between digital and physical worlds. Right. They might see an ad on Instagram, they might check reviews on their phone, and then they want to pick the product up in the store. And the one thing that ties all these experiences together is consistent product content. And you know what else is interesting is that the brand itself isn't as powerful as it used to be. Consumers are prioritizing product content, real, accessible quality information over brand name and logo recognition. So, in fact, we just published a report based on a massive consumer survey, and what we heard was that 85% of respondents said that the quality of product information is more important to their purchase decision than brand recognition. And that's a seismic shift. Right? You can't depend on having a recognizable brand name or tagline to get customers in the door or win at the shelf on its own anymore. And as you said, content, product content is foundational to every promotional and shopping channel today. If you're running an email campaign or you're printing coupons, or you're featuring products in an app, or launching a retail media blitz, you know, it all depends on having the right product content. When you drive that traffic to the product description page and all these other promotional channels can drive shopping traffic. But if the product page is missing key details or images, or it's not consistent or it's not complete or accurate, then conversion rates are going to absolutely plummet and all those retail media ad dollars you spent are wasted. So brands that get their product experiences right are seeing much higher conversion rates, lower returns, and much more loyal customer relationships.
- [13:04]
C
So, Simon, managing product experiences sounds straightforward, but clearly it isn't. From your perspective, what makes managing product experiences so fracking complicated? Right. Why isn't everyone doing it well?
- [13:21]
B
Right. So, you know, managing product experiences is deceptively complicated. And, you know, behind every product page is a tremendous amount of complexity at tremendous scale. Right. On the surface, it might seem like all you've got to do is just upload some images and some just, you know, product descriptions to Amazon. Right. But the reality is a lot more challenging. You know, brands are dealing with multiple retailers, marketplaces, geographic regions, each bring their own requirements for product data. There's ongoing massive skew proliferation. New products, new variations, seasonal items, regulatory changes, and, you know, every update needs to be reflected everywhere, all, all at all at once. So there's a lot of, like I said, you know, complexity with managing all of that data at tremendous scale. You know, then there's also the issue of recipient specific data requirements. You know, retailers might want different formats, different attributes, different images, and they're all trying to differentiate their retail experience. Right. You know, Target needs a reason for you to go to their website versus Walmart and vice versa. You know, regulations change, compliance standards evolve, and brands need to need to keep up. So what we're seeing is that companies that are still relying on manual workflows, spreadsheets, emails, copy and paste phone calls, simply can't keep pace with the speed of modern commerce. Given all of this complexity at tremendous scale. And you know, the result can be data fragmentation, duplication, errors, teams spending more time chasing down data and fixing mistakes rather than innovating or analyzing and optimizing performance. And it's a huge drain on their resources. And you know, that's why a lot of brands struggle to deliver those consistent, complete, high quality product experience. Every manual step introduces risk, more points of failure, a mismatched attribute, an outdated image, a spec change that never gets communicated. So the solution with PXN is to centralize, automate and standardize the management of all of that data. But it's obviously easier said than done. And that's where platforms like ours can make a real difference.
- [15:41]
C
Yeah, when I think about those enterprise brands with a thousand plus items in their catalog working across hundreds of marketplaces, it's, it's not just Amazon, it's so much more these days that trying to on your own keep track and be able to make your content compliant with the requirements that will allow your products to win on those marketplaces. It's just not realistically manageable by an individual brand. They need to rely on a company that is an expert in doing exactly that. It seems like that's the kind of platform that Syndico has built. It's hard to talk about E commerce now without already moving to agentic commerce beyond just AI. It's truly agentic driven commerce. What does this mean for brands in your perspective? And retailers as well, in terms of the opportunity it presents, but also the difficulties you see for brands to take advantage of this trend to win in situations where agentic commerce is emerging.
- [16:51]
B
Yeah, Thea, I mean, agentic commerce is one of the most exciting, but one of the most scary trends in retail right now. I mean, when I think about agentic commerce, it's about creating shopping journeys that are personalized, dynamic power BI AI where the system anticipates what a shopper needs and delivers it proactively. So imagine a world where your AI shopping assistant knows your budget, knows your allergies, knows your shoe size, knows your past purchases and preferences, and then can even complete that purchase on your behalf without you needing to go hop around and browse all these different websites, options and deals. I mean, Sounds great, right? And the opportunity here is enormous. I mean brands can now engage consumers in a new way and deliver hyper relevant experiences and drive loyalty through personalization. And when you've got the chance to have your products specifically recommended by AI to fulfill a user's needs right in the moment of discovery and decision. But the challenge in doing that is just as big. Agentic commerce absolutely depends on clean, structured and validated product data. If the data AI is relying on isn't accurate and discoverable, then the LLMs, the large language models, won't do their job effectively. So in our perspective, brands have got to move beyond static content and think about their product data as, as a, as a, as a living asset. Something that's constantly being updated, contextualized and is ready to fuel these sort of AI driven discovery experiences. And I think, I think it's a mind shift. Two, you know, we're used to having control, used to being able to curate product pages and what information we want shoppers to see. And now the shopping AI assistants are turning that upside down and taking some of that control out of our hands and potentially even circumnavigating the pdp, the product description page, or all to ever. So I think it's a shift from thinking about product content as a checkbox to seeing it as a strategic lever, something that can fuel these, these AI conversations and influence them in a way that positions you as, as, as the best possible option for relevant queries. And I think brands that are investing in making their product data abundant and machine readable will be able to capitalize on agentic commerce while those that don't will lag and be left out of the AI conversation.
- [19:40]
C
When I think about brands that try and manage all this content on a manual basis, it, it's a fool's errand because they end up not serving their entire catalog equally. They'll focus on a handful of top items and they'll focus on a handful of marketplaces where they sell most of their product. And that's, that's not good from a customer management perspective and it's not good for a brand portfolio perspective. So it seems like. And then add on top of that how agentic commerce is taking it out of the hands of many of those marketplaces and putting it into an agent. I mean I, I think about just to your point, wanting to have an agent that knows you. It knows that you're living a gluten free lifestyle or a non GMO lifestyle or whatever it is and you only want to train one agent if you end up having to train multiple agents, right, then you're spending a lot of time doing exactly that. And that may not be productive. So I think to your point, understanding where agentic commerce is leading and making sure the content is able to be digested by those models in an effective manner and still let the product resonate and drive conversion is where brands need to go. This really is just saying the market's shifting very fast. The pandemic had a massive influence on consumer behavior. There's so much tech innovation going on. And on top of that, the massive global disruption on economic pressures. What specifically are you doing as a leader to ensure that Syndico is positioned to stay ahead of these waves?
- [21:19]
B
Yeah, I mean, as you say, Peter, obviously everyone's having to figure out how to handle the accelerating pace of commerce, right? Consumer expectations are evolving, technology is advancing at a rapid rate, there's economic headwinds. I think it's forcing everybody to think creatively on how they approach the market. And we do believe we have an important role to play. So one major strategic move we made recently was to acquire one rule sick, another player in the PXM space. And they were especially known for their GDSN expertise and power reviews which you mentioned earlier, which unlocks a whole world of user generated content like ratings and reviews and customer Q and A. And the outcome of this combination of one more sync and syndigo is that it simplifies the complexity of PXM for our customers. You know, one, to be able to access one commerce data pool, the largest in the world, from one place. You know, second, to have a more powerful syndication network, three and a half times larger than the nearest alternative. And three, to be able to close the loop on the product experience by bringing that user generated content into the PXM ecosystem. You know, second thing we're doing is we are constantly investing and expanding our network of retailers and distributors, adding new connections all around the world. And the future isn't about adding more tools, right? It's about fewer tools that can do more for our brands. You know, we want our customers to be able to scale and grow into any new market with ease. At the start of 2025, we had around 1,850 endpoints, retailers and distributors that brands could send their content to. Now we have over 3,500 retailers, apps, distributors, marketplaces that brands can send their content to. And this definitely reinforces what we like to call is a one to many value proposition. Right. As a brand, I want to be able to manage My story, manage my brand content in one place, then be able to distribute it to as many places where my, where my customers shop. We're also strengthening the existing connections we have between brands and retailers. You know, working closely with our retail partners and enabling them to be able to accept new kinds of rich content, but then also to accelerate the speed that data moves from a brand to a retailer. Time to market measured in hours or days, not weeks, but also the feedback that comes from a retailer back to a brand. And again, it means that our clients can reach more consumers in more places where they shop faster, with greater success and with greater consistency. And on the technology front, you know, obviously we're investing heavily in automation through AI, but we're being very deliberate about this. We don't want to tack on AI for the sake of doing it. A lot of the AI washing that's happening out of the industry right now, you know, we're focused on making the workflows in PXN intuitive, faster, more efficient, more scalable so that our brands can focus more on strategy and growth and innovation. I mean, ultimately our goal is to help our clients turn their product content into a growth lever and a tool to adapt to all these changes we're talking about by making product data a strategic asset that they can easily manage for any environment. You know, we're enabling our brands to be able to adapt to all these seismic market shifts and meet the demands of their consumers and stay ahead of all of this change.
- [25:04]
C
Yeah, I think that if, if the content at the end of the day isn't driving conversion faster, then, then it's kind of an effort in futility. And it sounds like what you're focused on is let's not, let's not get caught up in the, the craziness of AI for the sake of being able to say you're doing something. AI actually solve problems. You know, it doesn't have to be sexy. What it has to do is actually move the numbers and drive growth for your clients. I also think that you mentioned power of using user generated content. When I think about what drives search engine optimization, UGC is a critical component and has a very high correlation to how organic search results are placed. And I always thought it was a miss that UGC largely was managed outside of all the rest of the content. And what I really love Syndigo has done is they've said, no, no, that that is a critical component of conversion driving content on a product detail page. That needs to be a core capability within Syndigo's portfolio of solutions. So it's really great to see that you've done.
- [26:19]
A
In today's CPG landscape, growth hinges on something deceptively simple. How well your product shows up not just on the shelf, but everywhere. A shopper might search, scan, compare or buy. And as AI reshapes how decisions are made from discovery to purchase, the brands that win are the ones building a product foundation strong enough to anchor them, yet agile enough to respond to shifting markets, new requirements and rising shopper expectations. This is where product experience management earns its name. It's the discipline of showing up accurately, consistently and contextually wherever your shoppers are. When your product data is complete and connected, the noise falls away. Teams shift from rework to refinement, from is it correct? To is it compelling? And that clarity is what's fueling the shift across the CPG industry, pushing teams past scattered content and siloed systems toward a comprehensive end to end solution that makes the work of managing product experiences easy. Top CPG brands, including Dole, Chomps and Unilever, as well as 90% of leading US retailers, partner with Syndigo to deliver accurate, engaging and compliant content across every channel on the world's largest product experience network, from data syndication, rich content ratings and reviews to pim, MDM and agentic commerce. See what Syndigo unlocks for you@ Syndigo.com CPG Again, that's Syndigo.com CPG.
- [28:04]
C
Let me remind our audience that I'm speaking today with Simon Angove. He's the CEO of Syndigo. Simon, we hear around the industry a lot of businesses are in belt tightening mode right now, tighter budgets and resource constraints. I know a lot of brands are facing, particularly in physical retail volume declines that are a result of the pandemic and pricing that was taken from your perspective and that obviously has a downstream effect on what they invest in and how much money they have to put against driving their business. What do you see as the biggest opportunities actually for efficiency in PXM workflows? And where do companies tend to get bogged down as they're struggling with the allocation of their budget to help them, you know, resuscitate and grow their businesses?
- [28:57]
B
Sure, yeah, great. You know, great question. And I think there's a few areas where PXM could help with efficiency and cost savings. I mean, there's no doubt that companies get bogged down when they've got a fragmented environment, a lot of manual workflows, lack of automation. And the key is to centralize, automate and empower their teams to work smarter, right? To do more with less. So to start, I think having one source of truth for product data is a really critical efficiency opportunity. When everybody's working from the same validated data, you're reducing a lot of confusion, a lot of rework, a lot of hunting down of the right data. And what's happening a lot of times is brands and retailers have all this critical data. Everything from like product names, SKU numbers and supply chain data and a spreadsheet over here, a database over there. Then you've got all your photos and images stored somewhere else, your e commerce descriptions that maybe your marketing agency wrote in another place and it's all scattered. And this doesn't just introduce a lot of room for error, but it also means that it's hard for people to hunt down what is the latest, most correct, most useful content when they need it. So consolidating all of this content into a single location, a single source of truth that is up to date, that is complete, that is enriched, that is accurate, like a product information management system really does wonders both for efficiency, but also speed to market and frankly, you know, the sanity of a lot of our lot of our customers. So that's certainly a big, a big opportunity, you know, similarly, we see a lot of efficiency gains from our customers consolidating their entire PXM technology stack, which really simplifies operations and drives much lower total cost of ownership. You know, we see a lot of businesses that may have multiple syndication platforms. A tool for gdsn, another tool for digital shelf analytics, another tool, Digital asset management, another tool for pim, another tool for ratings and reviews. And there's the opportunity with a complete unified PXM tech stack like Syndigo to really consolidate all of those different systems, which as I said, drives improved TCO and definitely accelerates the market as all these components interoperate a lot more easily because a lot of time is lost when you are manually copying data from one system to another.
- [31:33]
C
I made mention when I started our conversation that I had. I met you last earlier this year at the. At the year beginning meeting, your kickoff for both associates and and partners. One way we've seen companies like Cindigo stay flexible and capable, delivering great results for clients, is a strong partner network with providers like Flywheel to support them along the way. I was really impressed with what you did at the partner meeting back at the end of January. Can you tell us a little bit about your partner strategy and why you've prioritized that to help you deliver better capabilities for your clients.
- [32:18]
B
Yeah, sure. And as you know, it's a huge part of our strategy. It's an area, we've made massive investments and I believe that partnerships are absolutely essential in today's complex commerce landscape. Ultimately it's about marrying world class Indigo technology with the expertise of our partners to deliver results for our, for our shared, shared end customers. And our global partners are doing everything from assisting with strategy, creative retail, media implementation, integrations, execution, et cetera. And we work with organizations like Flywheel for example, and by way of example, we recently worked together on Colgate Palmolive to streamline their e commerce process. And together we accelerate the syndication of their product content for over 500 of their key SKUs across their retail network. You know, including a direct connection to Kroger for example, which allows them to publish product content Updates in just 48 hours or less instead of what was weeks before. So just imagine, you know, the impact on a CPG brand's agility and speed when we could help them together with our partners like Flywheel, get new products and product updates to market that fast and that successfully. So I think ultimately it's about building an ecosystem of partners with Syndigo where everybody wins, right? Our brands, our retailers and ultimately the end shopper. And I think it goes beyond execution because partners like Flywheel and others bring expertise, they bring best practices and they bring, they bring innovation and they're helping brands navigate complexity, measure and optimize performance and achieve our clients tactical and strategic goals in all the markets where they operate around the globe.
- [34:21]
C
Simon, you touched on how artificial intelligence is transforming how consumers browse and ultimately how they buy. Let's turn a little bit to the tactical side for a second. Where is it coming up in PXM in a tactical, practical way?
- [34:38]
B
Yeah, sure. And as I mentioned earlier, there's an awful lot of AI washing out there in the industry. But I could tell you that we've been building AI into our platform for many, many years and it's been super exciting to see the impact it's had on our platform and how customers interact with our platform. I mean, the results are really, really striking when it, when it's, when it's done right, right. Everything from its role in content creation to successful syndication to optimizing the performance of the, of the PD pdp. So you know, one of the main goals for us is around automation and to reduce the manual effort for our, for our clients. So they could be more strategic, they could be more creative, they can be more Analytical, but we're being really thoughtful about where AI automation belongs in the PXM process and where human oversight still matters, because not every decision and workflow should be 100% machine led. So to give our audience some ideas of what's going on right now, I mean, these are some real world examples of how our clients are using AI in our platform today. So one example, they're automatically generating product descriptions, translating text accessibility attributes like alt text. Second, they're using AI in our platform to optimize the layout of product pages, including all of the rich enhanced content based on all the assets you already have today. Third, it could be validating data against brand data against the retailer's requirements and matching it, or transforming it so that it fits the retailers up to date specifications, driving time to market, less rejection rates, et cetera. And then lastly, it could be automatically suggesting PDP optimization based on the performance trends it sees, but also taking signals from user generated content. So for example, if AI reads down the page and a user is extolling the benefits of a particular feature, let's amplify that above the fold. If someone's expressing confusion about a feature, let's clarify it above, above, above the fold. So none of this is theoretical or future state. I mean, these are real capabilities in our AI native platform today that are happening now. But I do think we've only scratched the surface of what's possible with AI. I would say the other thing that's really exciting about AI is the scale that it's unlocking for brands. And you referenced this earlier, Peter. It allows them to use AI to give full attention to their entire catalog, not just their top skus. Right? I mean, brands have been limited by the resources they have to deliver high quality experiences across their entire portfolio. Now with AI, we can scale to make sure that every single SKU gets a customized touch and is optimized for every retailer where that SKU is sold. Right now every item can have rich content like comparison charts or interactive product tours or engaging images, right? And now content and images in the entire catalog can be translated and localized for different markets and different, different recipients. You know, and what we're, what we're seeing is, is really important in actually making the difference and, and getting the results are what I'm going to call our AI native solutions, which are solutions which have been purpose built for the unique needs of pxm with AI baked in from the start, not bolted in as an afterthought so people can hop onto the AI bandwagon and At Syndigo, we've integrated AI natively throughout the entire PXM process. Everything from content creation to data enrichment to data governance, to transformation to meet retailer requirements, to measuring and optimizing PDP performance. And then as I mentioned, even using UGC post purchase feedback to continually optimize the experience. And it's all built from the ground up. Using AI natively.
- [38:45]
C
Yeah. When I think about all the cooks in the content kitchen, for lack of a better term, you've got the retail marketplace requirements, you've got the brand guidelines, if you're selling, particularly OTC medications, you've got legal compliance requirements. AI enables you to train the agent to understand what are all those requirements and over time try to refine, learn from itself and ultimately build a tool that requires very little human oversight, that gets 99% of what needs to be done. And to your point, allows you to scale that out across an entire catalog and across every marketplace, so every item has its opportunity to shine. So the question I guess I have for you as a follow up, Simon, is for companies that are hesitant about AI driven solutions for product content management. What's your advice? How, how do they get moving without feeling overwhelmed by AI?
- [39:50]
B
There's an awful lot of talk, a tremendous amount of talk in the market about AI, but I can tell you that isn't reflected in the levels of adoption that we're seeing across brands, brands and retailers. So the advice we always give is to start small and focus on automating sort of routine, repetitive tasks first. Right. Those, those tasks which are low risk but have, have a high impact, particularly on productivity and look for those quick wins that are going to build confidence and momentum. And I would say choose PXM platforms that need to reintegrate AI without you requiring to change your workflow. And that's where this AI native approach really matters. And I think the other piece is to demystify AI and show its practical value. Right. So start with automation of these routine tasks, then move to enrichment and then move to optimization. And make sure you partner with experts that have real experience who can guide you through this process and help you avoid common pitfalls. Right. I mean, the goal is to make AI an enabler. And I think that with the right approach and the right partner and the right technology, brands and retailers are going to unlock entirely new levels of efficiency and growth.
- [41:14]
C
Brilliant. Well, obviously 2026, the New Year's ahead of US retailers and brands are trying to figure out where they need to shift their focus. What do you see as being the next phase for PXM and what should we be looking for in 2026 to transpire?
- [41:32]
B
Yeah, I think looking ahead, we're going to see data powering personalized comics experiences at massive scale, especially leveraging content like ugc as I mentioned earlier. Right. We're going to be able to take real authentic feedback from user reviews and Q and A and use that dynamically personalize content for, for individual shoppers. You know, I also think we're going to see more direct connections between retailers, brands and now large, large language models. Right. As we said, think about being able to purchase items directly in a chat, a Chat interface like ChatGPT is already doing through platforms like Shopify and Etsy and, and obviously folks like Walmart and Sans Club are going to be joining them soon. And I think, you know, what we expect to see is more and more retailers unlocking direct purchase capabilities and even brands joining in for D2C purchases, completely changing the E commerce landscape. And I anticipate other AI assistants will add to this capability too, like Gemini, Perplexity and so on. So pace of innovation is accelerating.
- [42:42]
C
Right.
- [42:43]
B
And the lines between content and commerce and conversation are blurring. And I think that brands who invest in product content quality, which is at the heart of all of this, are positioned to lead in the new era. And you know, like I said, it's a super exciting but often scary time and I'm really looking forward to seeing how our industry evolves in 2026 and beyond.
- [43:08]
C
I want to underscore one thing you said around customer sentiment analysis. I've mentioned this, I think I mentioned on our very first episode of the CPG Guys, back in 2020, there were a couple professors, one at Northwestern and one at MIT, that hypothesized that everything you can get from a very expensive unlimited focus group you can probably get just by reading customer reviews. And so they set about testing this out. They took six categories and they at an early stage of large language models started to analyze. And what they came back with is that about 96% of what you can get from a focus group you can just get by reading what consumers write about your products. Understanding that. And if you're, if you're, a brand and you're not availing yourself of customer sentiment analysis on all of this great UGC that's out there, you're, you're, you're missing a huge opportunity to improve your product. Even when you have really great reviews, there are always nuggets and gems in there that help you make your product even better and find yourself great opportunities to innovate. So I think, you know, adding that capability into your portfolio assignment at Syndico was, as I said, a strong a strong choice on your part. To our audience, I want to thank you for joining us thrice each week for our podcast conversations. And of course we really appreciate the 40,000 plus followers on LinkedIn who like and share our content. Please do follow us on your preferred listening platform. If you follow us, it means every time we publish a new episode, it appears in your feed automatically. You don't have to go search for it and you can listen to us. And of course I may mention the fact that we're going to be a lot of events this spring, so make sure if you see us come by and say hi, we would love to talk to you. You know, my big takeaway from this.
- [45:00]
B
Is.
- [45:02]
C
The the space of digital commerce is transforming at such a rapid pace. There are so many new marketplaces. Agentic commerce is, is is on the landscape and brands really need to start thinking about how they make sure their entire portfolio can succeed on each and every marketplace where it is presented and in every commerce situation. And Syndico is positioned itself in its capabilities, through its partnerships, through its acquisitions to do exactly that, to deliver the best in class support for brands so that they can win wherever they engage with consumers. Simon, I want to thank you for coming on the podcast and talking to me today. It's a delight to do this and I wish you well in the coming year. Thank you.
- [45:57]
B
Thanks very much Peter. Thanks for having me. Enjoyed the conversation. Thanks very much Peter. Thanks for having me. Enjoyed the conversation and to our audience.
- [46:04]
C
As always, thank you for choosing the CPG Guys to both educate and entertain you. We look forward to speaking with you on the next episode of Wait for it. The CPG Guys.
- [46:15]
B
Goodbye.
- [46:22]
A
Foreign.
- [46:28]
C
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