Unilever, Reckitt Report AI-Enabled Benefits in Smart Search, Product Development
Unilever and Reckitt are both cutting down on innovation timelines and introducing efficiencies by embedding AI-enabled capabilities across their enterprises.
At Unilever, the company is using AI to fuel innovation, visibility and personalization, particularly for its Hellmann's and Knorr's brands, Olivia Kirby, director of integrated demand generation for the company's food segment, said in a company blog.
As part of this, Unilever is better positioning its content for AI-driven search and conversation tools, ensuring its brands show up not only on shelves, but in digital search answers.
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“To address this, our foods business is using AI search visibility platforms to understand how our brands perform across large language models, identify any gaps and refine content strategies as needed,” said Meenakshi Burra, chief digital and information officer and chief data officer for the foods business.
AI Case Study
Leading up to the 2026 Super Bowl, Unilever identified a visibility gap for its Hellmann's brand around the search prompt "Game Day sandwich recipes." This was driven by a lack of listicle-style content, which the brand promptly fixed by creating a dedicated Game Day sandwich listicle, updating descriptions with relevant keywords, reframing existing content into AI-friendly listicle formats and expanding the brand’s recipe section.
Results: 10-position boost in visibility rankings and an increased overall visibility score that nearly doubled the 10% benchmark, improving its likelihood of being recommended in search results.
The company is also using AI to stay ahead of viral trends, implementing AI-enabled product development to test thousands of recipe variations in seconds instead of exploring individual ideas. Through this, Unilever can more quickly recognize patterns in taste, product data and customer feedback and predict which variant will most resonate with consumers before moving into physical trials and product development.
“For our scientists in foods, AI isn’t just a time-saver; it’s changing how we discover, collaborate and innovate,” said Heike Steiling, chief R&D officer of foods.
Reckitt's Digital Science Play
Reckitt is using AI-enabled tools to increase speed and scale within its product portfolio.
According to statements shared during its recent investor seminar, “Focus On: Digital Science,” the company is tapping into generative AI to augment decision-making, enhance productivity and accelerate workflows.
[Also: How Reckitt keeps retail execution timely and cost-efficient with AI]
This is part of an overall strategy to merge predictive science and simulation tech, using proprietary data to reduce the need for physical product testing, lower development costs and speed up time to market.
AI in Action
Digital science capabilities have been deployed across all of the company's power brands in more than 20 countries. Additionally, more than 2,000 employees across R&D and marketing have been trained to use the new capabilities.
Through this, Reckitt has already seen benefits such as:
- Up to 70% time savings on lower-added-value tasks across the R&D function
- Twenty-five percent year-over-year expected incremental net revenue for an average project size
The company expects to see more benefits as it extends these capabilities into additional functions through 2026.
“Innovation is no longer about having good ideas. It’s about how quickly you can prove them, how confidently you can scale them and how consistently you can repeat that success," said Angela Naef, chief R&D officer.
