Summarize this blog post with:
Analytics Unite, is the to-go summit for retail and consumer goods brands and it’s 2026 edition is being held on April 7-9 in Chicago.
Themed "Redefining the Possible," it focuses on how retail and consumer goods leaders can drive growth by embracing volatility through AI-driven, agile, and resilient strategies. The conference highlights accelerating value with AI, modernizing data, and fostering new performance cultures.
1. Scaling AI and Proving Value
- Moving Beyond Hype
- Agentic Consumers & Systems
- AI-Elevated Performance
2. Modernizing Data Strategy and Infrastructure
- Unified Data Ecosystems
- Data Clean Rooms & Privacy
- Infrastructure Optimization
3. Creating Modern Performance Cultures
- Data-Driven Leadership
- Bridging Tech and Business
- Human-in-the-Loop
4. Smart Supply Chains and Omnichannel Resilience
- Autonomous Planning
- Retail/CPG Collaboration
- Quality of Growth
5. The 2026 Data Leadership Awards
- Recognizing organizations that have successfully deployed AI and analytics to drive innovation, efficiency, and growth, proving the value of their data strategies.
The event brings together consumer goods and retail executives to navigate the next chapter of data-driven growth.
Organizer: Consumer Goods Technology
Dates: April 7 to 9, 2026
Location: The Drake, 14 East Walton Place, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 60611
Link: https://www.analyticsunite.com/
Who attends Analytics Unite?
Senior leaders from CPG & Retail brands including (but not limited to) CIO, CDO, Chief Data Officer, and VP of Supply Chain, etc.
Confirmed speakers represent major brands:
- Gene Kholodenko, CIO, Hershey Company – data strategies.
- Kristen Daihes, SVP of Analytics, Mars – smart supply chains.
- Greg Pederson, Director of Data & Analytics, Target – revamped data foundations.
- Udit Mehrotra, Head of Product, Amazon – agentic consumer systems.
- Varun Kakaria, CIO North America, Reckitt – AI shelf execution.
- Ramesh Kollepara, SVP Global CTO, Mars Snacking – autonomous intelligence.
Other participants include executives from Diageo, Sephora, Lowe’s, and Cloudera.
You can find the complete agenda on the Analytics Unite website.
To extract real value, CPG executives should arrive with clarity on questions on data, strategy, governance, ROI and operationalizing insights, like:
- Do we have a unified data model across commercial, supply chain, and finance?
- Is governance enabling scale — or slowing it down?
- Can we quantify margin lift from pricing analytics?
- Can we measure working capital improvements from inventory intelligence?
- What workflows need embedded intelligence?
- Which decisions can be automated safely?
So, arriving with these questions reframes Analytics Unite from a learning event into a strategic working session
Last year, Polestar Analytics was proud to sponsor the industry-referenced Consumer Goods Technology Analytics Study, a benchmark report that examines analytics maturity, challenges, and top investment areas shaping the retail and consumer goods landscape.
Highlighted during Analytics Unite 2025.
This study drew insights from leading brands on analytics , adoption barriers, governance models, and where next-gen technologies like AI and decisioning systems are adding the most value.
Gold Sponsorship and Strategic Presence
As a Gold Sponsor, Polestar Analytics will be featured throughout the Analytics Unite agenda — from curated workshops and strategy roundtables to VIP networking opportunities — engaging with qualified retail and consumer goods leaders
Source
Our enterprise analytics philosophy centres on:
- Analytics Strategy: Tying analytics investment to real business value — across merchandising, supply chain, demand planning, and customer engagement.
- Scalable Data & AI Foundations: Building infrastructure that lets AI scale across the organization with AI and Agentic-led development ft. Data Nexus of 1Platform
- Decision-Ready Analytics: Giving teams agentic tools to make confident, data-backed decisions. For example, our RGM platform not just tracks the promotions but also guides you in building new plans.
- Cross-Functional Integration: Connecting analytics insights with planning such that finance, operations, marketing, and commercial teams can have impact that actually sticks.
Executive Conversations & Thought Leadership
Polestar Analytics’ leadership will be available to discuss best practices around:
- Connecting analytics strategy with enterprise execution
- Scaling AI responsibly and with measurable ROI
- Data governance frameworks that unlock agility
- Bridging analytic insights with functional execution
These conversations align directly with Analytics Unite’s mission to help leaders turn data strategies into measurable business outcomes.
Agentic AI moves beyond generating insights to orchestrating decisions within guardrails.
In Agentic AI in CPG, that means AI systems that don’t just forecast demand or recommend pricing — they continuously monitor signals, evaluate trade-offs, and trigger actions across trade spend, pricing, inventory, and media allocation.
It’s not about replacing leaders. It’s about embedding adaptive intelligence into repeatable commercial and supply chain decisions — reducing latency and improving precision at scale.
CPG has invested heavily in data platforms and AI models. What’s been missing is decision integration.
In 2026, pressure for measurable ROI, mature cloud ecosystems, and scalable AI are converging. The competitive edge will shift from “who has better models” to “who makes better decisions faster.”
Decision Intelligence is about systematically improving how pricing, promotion, supply chain, and commercial choices are made — with accountability to margin, growth, and working capital.