Unilever expands AI-driven business innovation

Across industries, artificial intelligence is quietly transforming how companies operate, making supply chains faster, reducing waste, and creating more personalised experiences for consumers.
Globally, Unilever has been at the heart of this shift.

In Bangladesh, where tradition and technology often intersect, that transformation is becoming increasingly visible.

It is not unusual to see a village shopkeeper carefully maintaining handwritten ledgers while also using an AI-enabled mobile app to place orders.

This blend of old habits and new intelligence offers a glimpse of how innovation is beginning to reshape the FMCG landscape, and nowhere is that reshaping more deliberate than at Unilever Bangladesh.
Around the world, Unilever has embraced AI in practical and measurable ways.

Through its 100+ Accelerator partnership, Unilever has worked with start-ups such as H2Ok Innovations to deploy AI-driven cleaning systems in factories, cutting water and energy use by 10 per cent, reducing cleaning times by 20 per cent, and saving more than €100,000 annually at a single facility.

In Asia, Unilever has introduced eB2B apps that allow small retailers to order stock through mobile phones, access promotions and manage deliveries digitally.

In markets such as Thailand and Vietnam, these platforms have boosted retailer loyalty and strengthened competitiveness against larger supermarkets.

Each of these examples demonstrates that AI is not merely a technology trend.
It is a practical tool that helps products reach customers more quickly, factories run more efficiently and small retailers thrive.

For Bangladesh, these global innovations connect directly to challenges the market faces every day: seasonal demand spikes, a fragmented retail landscape spanning nearly 1.4 million small FMCG outlets, rising energy costs and the need to allocate scarce resources more wisely. Unilever Bangladesh has already taken meaningful steps internally.

The company uses Una, an AI co-pilot developed with Microsoft and Accenture, which helps employees make faster and more informed decisions by retrieving real-time company data.

Degreed, an AI-powered learning platform, delivers personalised training modules to employees, while Viva Engage strengthens cross-team collaboration. These may appear to be back-office systems, but their effect is far-reaching.

By equipping its workforce with better tools, Unilever Bangladesh is laying the groundwork for larger transformations in operations, retail engagement and consumer experience.

At the retail level, Unilever Bangladesh developed IQ Nexus, an AI-powered retail execution platform that uses neural network-based AI to process daily sales data and generate demand forecasts, ensuring the right product reaches the right store at the right time.

Piloted across five regions, the platform raised target achievement rates to 71 per cent from 65 per cent, improved product assortment by 6 per cent and increased distribution depth by 4 per cent.

For individual retailers, it has helped stabilise cash flow by reducing both overstocking and stock shortages, while also transforming field sales teams from order collectors into data-backed consultants.

Across its factories in Chattogram and beyond, Unilever Bangladesh is also exploring AI-driven monitoring and efficiency systems similar to those already piloted in Europe, tools that could meaningfully address water scarcity and rising energy costs if applied locally.
Technology alone cannot transform business.That is why Unilever Bangladesh’s investment in upskilling employees through DigiOps, citizen developer programmes and AI-enabled platforms is as important as any platform rollout. AI is not replacing human roles here.
It is augmenting them, making work more efficient, decisions more precise and the organisation more resilient.
Bangladesh is moving rapidly towards a digital economy, and from mobile banking to e-commerce, the country has already demonstrated its capacity for rapid adoption.
For Unilever, AI offers a way to connect global innovation with local realities, supporting small shopkeepers, strengthening supply chains and expanding consumer choice. At its core, this is not just about technology.
It is about building opportunity and delivering it to every level of the market