Driving competitive advantage, but confidence is low

The advantage for CP companies will come from shaping how decisions are made upstream, integrating brands into retail and platform ecosystems, and building trusted product signals that AI agents recognize and prioritize. However, confidence remains low. In research conducted by EY teams, the ability to influence algorithmic recommendations is identified as the single most important future source of competitive advantage in sales and marketing, yet only 21% of executives are confident in their organization’s ability to deliver it today.

It’s not surprising then that only 11% of executives agree that they operate as a unified growth engine, and only 15% say commercial data is fully integrated and routinely used to drive cross-functional decisions. It’s evidence that the environment in which decisions are made is changing faster than the operating models most companies rely on.

When optimization becomes a trap – it’s necessary, but it’s not enough

CP companies are finding that performance gains are proving stubbornly hard to unlock, because the environment increasingly rewards not isolated optimizations, but how decisions connect across the commercial system. EY teams refer to this as the “optimization trap”: improving individual decisions, while the operating model that links them remains largely unchanged.

In fact, 63% of companies surveyed report little to no improvement in brand and product effectiveness at the point of purchase, with similarly limited progress across revenue predictability and speed to market. That gap between what organizations know and what they can reliably do is widening — what is described as the “decision gap” in the EY report.

Commercial transformation is now structural, not incremental

As isolated optimizations show little impact to sales, the next phase of commercial transformation needs to be structural, not incremental. The successful companies will be those that connect the levers that platforms can “read” and reward pricing logic, promotional mechanics, product content, media activation and availability – so that decisions are made once, governed clearly and executed consistently across the sales and marketing function.

One CIO at a major brand said, “The reality today is islands of data. Sales’ view of the world sits independently of the physical reality of supply and asset capability.” 

Delivering structural change to drive competitive advantage

There comes a point where process integration is no longer enough and governance must be addressed directly (we call this the Governance Turn). It marks the shift from incremental improvement to structural progress, a turn that requires a purposeful step change, but is where transformation most often slows down.

The EY sales and marketing maturity ladder helps CP leadership teams assess where their organization sits today, and whether their transformation efforts are optimizing within the current model or redesigning the system itself. AI increases the urgency of the shift, but operating model maturity determines how much value companies can capture from it. The more companies transform, the more clearly they see its necessity.

From our research, the majority of companies sit in levels two and three:

• 2% are at level 1, "Lights On": focuses on maintaining day-to-day operations, with teams working largely independently and relying on manual processes
• 57% are at level 2, "Incremental Optimization": builds alignment across teams around shared priorities, improving coordination and increasing the use of data in decisions
• 35% are at level 3, "Coordinated Execution": establishes a unified commercial plan with common ways of working, enabling consistent and aligned execution across teams
• 7% are at level 4, "Synchronized Intelligence": integrates data, systems, and teams to connect decisions and execution, supporting faster and more forward-looking actions
• <1% are at level 5, "Self-Optimizing Ecosystem": operates as a connected, AI-enabled ecosystem that continuously improves decisions and performance across teams and partners

Source: EY Consumer Products Dynamics Research 2026

Your path to connected decision-making

Companies need to redesign how decisions are made across sales and marketing to build relevance not only with consumers and retail customers, but with the platforms and decision mechanisms that increasingly mediate them. That shift requires shared decision infrastructure, common performance metrics, cross-functional accountability and stronger leadership alignment around commercial priorities. Most organizations are not yet designed to operate this way. As a result, the leadership opportunity is not simply to improve individual functions, but to redesign the operating model that connects them.

Those that do not may not fail dramatically. Instead, they risk being chosen less often — in ways that are difficult to detect until market share has already shifted.

In conclusion

AI is accelerating change in how products are discovered, compared and chosen, but the real challenge lies in how organizations make commercial decisions in response. The question is not whether these shifts will reshape the industry, but how quickly companies adapt the systems that guide those decisions.

Brands will continue to matter – but how they’re built, activated and sustained will change. Those that strengthen how decisions connect across their commercial system and align today’s choices with the system they’ll operate will be better placed to navigate that shift.

Inside the full report

The full EY State of Consumer Products: Reclaiming relevance – sales and marketing in an AI world report goes deeper into the forces driving change in sales and marketing functions and on the shift to system-driven competition. We discuss the optimization trap, the decision gap and much more, exploring what leadership teams can do now, including:

• A sales and marketing maturity ladder: how leading organizations progress from “incremental optimization” to a self-optimizing ecosystem
• Eight implications for sales and marketing leaders: the questions to ask now about talent, data, operating model integration and where influence is shifting upstream

Are you ready to shape the future with confidence? Our EY Consumer Products professionals are here to help you create extraordinary relevance with consumers, customers and capital markets. Below, learn more about our relevant services and meet our team.