Diageo Creates Cross-Industry, AI-Enabled 'Think Party' to Pin Down Consumer Trends
BevAlc company Diageo, which manufactures such brands as Johnnie Walker, Don Julio Tequila and Guinness, brought together several companies for an initiative that will help identify consumer trends and how they evolve.
"The Think Party" combines insights from Diageo, Kantar, Pinterest, Tinder, Google, Unilever, Pepsi Lipton (a partnership between Unilever and PepsiCo) and The Kraft Heinz Co. to analyze the future of socialization.
Alberto Romano, who leads futures and culture planning at Diageo, tells CGT that the company built the study using a three-tiered approach that began with its proprietary Foresight System. This scanned cultural signals and consumer behaviors to generate an initial hypothesis.
"Then we overlaid external trend reports, consumer studies and cultural journalism to give us global breadth," says Romano, adding that generative AI serves as an accelerator that helps the team synthesize, cluster and digest thousands of data points into meaningful patterns.
"In short, foresight gave us the foundation, external sources gave us scale, and AI gave us the speed and clarity to see weak signals before they went mainstream," he says.
The group blends strategic foresight, deep horizon scanning and quantitative analysis that can help consumer goods companies better understand key social trends and how they can better respond to shifts in behavior.
The Findings
The companies released their initial findings, with more to come later in the fall. Among them are:
Friendship circles are becoming smaller and more intentional, with a focus on quality over quantity and a strong desire for a sense of belonging, which is increasingly found in interest-based communities and fandoms.
Socializing has become more curated and mindful, shifting toward hyper-planned events and "smart partying" with non-alc options to balance fun with wellness.
The locations and motivations for connection are changing, with a rise in intentional, micro-celebrations and a preference for "alternative social spaces" and reimagined "third spaces" like social saunas and gaming cafés.
"One of the biggest unlocks was seeing how our consumer occasion framework is expanding. People aren’t just 'going out for a drink' anymore — they’re socializing in new ways, from creative workshops and gaming marathons to wellness-infused raves and micro-milestone celebrations," says Romano.
"This expansion helps us spot new demand spaces where our brands can meet consumers differently — building products that match not only what people drink, but why and how they gather," he adds.
Diageo predicts that socializing will become more intentional, inventive, expanded, amplified and balanced.
The collaborative effort allows members to share insights across industries — whether retail, food, tech, or lifestyle — to get access to data points and behaviors they wouldn't typically see within their own sector, says Romano.
"That’s why ‘The Think Party’ was born as a cross-industry cultural lab. It started with a simple conversation over cocktails, but grew into a coalition of partners that is committed to decoding the future of socializing together," he says. "Collaboration gives us sharper foresight and, ultimately, helps us design drinks, experiences and ecosystems that reflect real life, not siloed categories."
