Pittsburgh, PA – March 4, 2025 – First Insight, a global leader in AI-powered decision-making, has been recognized as a Major Player in the recently published IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Retail AI-Driven Assortment Planning Solutions 2025 Vendor Assessment (IDC #US52038124, January 2025). The report evaluates vendors based on their capabilities and strategies in AI-driven assortment planning, an increasingly critical area for retailers looking to optimize their product selections and drive profitability.
First Insight’s innovative approach to using forward-looking Voice of the Customer (VoC) data, advanced AI technologies including Agentic AI Agents, and predictive analytics enables retailers to make smarter assortment decisions. By shifting from reliance on historical sales data to an approach powered by real-time consumer sentiment and AI-driven demand forecasting, First Insight enables brands to reduce inventory risk, increase full-price sell-through and SKU productivity, and bring winning products to market with greater confidence.
The growing importance of AI throughout assortment planning has brands moving away from traditional merchant-driven intuition and toward more data-driven decision-making. First Insight bridges this transition by combining human insights with advanced AI, Generative AI, and Agentic AI allowing brands to refine their product assortments, optimize allocations, and ensure the right products are available in the right locations at the right time.
“Brands no longer have the luxury of lengthy, manual planning cycles—assortment decisions must be made faster and with greater accuracy. First Insight’s agentic AI acts as an always-on assistant, streamlining decision-making by analyzing vast consumer data sets in real time and delivering actionable recommendations that can be executed instantly.”, said Greg Petro, CEO of First Insight. “By speeding up the entire assortment planning process, we’re helping brands save valuable time, reduce costly missteps, and maximize revenue opportunities.”
Key advantages of First Insight’s AI-Driven Assortment Planning:
- Faster Decision-Making: First Insight’s agentic AI reduces the manual burden on merchandising teams, automating insights that previously took weeks into instant, actionable recommendations.
- Proactive Demand Forecasting: Rather than relying on backward-looking sales data, First Insight uses real-time consumer sentiment analysis to predict demand before products hit the market, reducing inventory misalignment.
- Maximizing SKU Productivity: First Insight helps brands eliminate poor performers early while identifying high-potential products, ensuring that assortments align with evolving consumer preferences.
- Adaptive Planning and Allocation: With the ability to segment the data by audience, channel, region, or locale, First Insight enables retailers to tailor assortments at a granular level, ensuring the right mix of products for each location.
- API Integration into Existing Workflows: First Insight acts as the central predictive AI brain for your retail systems via APIs. Simplifying decision-making with integration into existing merchandising, pricing, marketing and supply chain systems, it provides one clear, actionable indicator that aligns your teams around smarter, faster and more profitable choices.
About IDC MarketScape:
IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of technology and service suppliers in a given market. The research utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each supplier’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of technology suppliers can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective suppliers.
About First Insight
First Insight is a global leader in AI-powered decision-making, trusted by brands like Gap, Under Armour, Marks & Spencer (M&S), Woolworths, Family Dollar, and Kohl’s. Leveraging advanced AI technologies—including agentic AI, generative AI, machine learning, and human computational modeling—combined with real-time consumer data, First Insight transforms consumer insights into profitable strategies that drive measurable business success.
Powered by its proprietary Voice of the Customer platform and Value Score™, First Insight enables businesses to evaluate the value of products, people, and experiences. First Insight helps companies confidently design, price, and market offerings that resonate with consumers, ensuring every decision aligns with market demand and delivers financial impact.
With 18 years of innovation in AI and predictive analytics, First Insight empowers businesses across industries—including retail, apparel, footwear, automotive, home goods, CPG, and hospitality—to outpace competitors by deeply understanding and adapting to ever-changing customer needs. From concept to conversion, First Insight equips brands to create offerings customers love while achieving higher revenue, stronger margins, and deeper customer loyalty. Discover more at www.firstinsight.com.
Media Contact for First Insight:
Berns Communications Group
Michael McMullan
mmcmullan@bcg-pr.com
