From left: Innovate Marketing partners and co-founders
Uwe Stueckmann, Ory Adler and Steve Rothwell
Uwe Stueckmann is pairing his retail-marketing savvy with the loyalty expertise of Ory Adler and the tech know-how of U.K.-based entrepreneur Steve Rothwell to launch Innovate Marketing, a consultancy focused on artificial intelligence and its effects on commerce.
Stueckmann tells strategy that while most AI adoption in retail currently focuses on internal processes like supply chain and pricing, Innovate plans to zero in on how technology is reshaping the customer experience. Announced Wednesday, the firm will advise on loyalty, CRM and digital strategy and will work to develop branded AI agents with CPGs.
“This is truly, I think, akin to the launch of the internet in many ways, or the rise of the mobile phone,” Stueckmann says of AI’s potential to disrupt the retail landscape. “It’s a fundamental shift in how consumers will behave.”
Stueckmann, a former EVP of customer experience and SVP of marketing at Loblaw, is joined at Innovate by Adler, a former customer analytics and loyalty executive at Staples. Rounding out the team of founding partners is Rothwell, the founder and chief information officer of U.K.-based Eagle Eye Solutions, an AI-powered loyalty and personalization platform.
Stueckmann says the consultancy arrives with “agentic commerce” rapidly taking shape. Developments, like ChatGPT enabling transactions through Shopify and Etsy, are in his view, “just the first step.”
“You can see a world where a consumer will transact out of an AI platform, or an AI agent that will run the transaction for the customer,” Stueckmann says. “In other words, act as an agent of that customer. That does have some pretty profound implications.”
Innovate’s focus will be on helping retailers modernize loyalty, CRM and digital strategy and developing branded AI agents for CPGs, he adds.
The firm will be headquartered in Toronto with Rothwell operating from the U.K. Innovate plans to draw on a network of freelance talent as its staffing foundation.
