The next phase of enterprise AI may depend less on building better models and more on understanding how those models fit into the workflows of large companies.
Effie.ai, a Chicago-based platform focused on agentic AI for retail execution, is taking that approach with the appointment of Nataliia Freidrich as Strategy Advisor in its Chicago office.
Freidrich brings more than 15 years of experience in revenue growth management, sales operations and commercial transformation, including leadership roles at Mondelēz International, AB InBev and Merrill Lynch.
The shift is particularly visible in retail and consumer products. A Deloitte survey of 200 executives found that only 7% to 10% of retail and CPG companies have reached enterprise-wide AI deployment, despite widespread experimentation. At the same time, 50% to 60% are already piloting agentic commerce capabilities, highlighting the gap between testing AI and scaling it across operations.
Agentic AI moves from pilots to retail execution
That gap between experimentation and execution is where Effie.ai is positioning its technology.
Rather than using AI only to analyze retail data or produce recommendations, the company is building agents around the work performed by sales representatives and merchandisers in the field. Its systems can analyze shelf conditions, identify gaps, recommend corrective actions and verify whether those actions have been completed.
The approach reflects a broader shift in retail technology. McKinsey estimates that merchants could reclaim up to 40% of their time by using agentic AI to handle manual and repetitive tasks, allowing them to spend more time on strategic activities.
The challenge is making those systems useful in environments where decisions still depend on physical stores, commercial relationships and constantly changing conditions.
That is where Freidrich’s experience becomes relevant. Her career spans the commercial functions that connect corporate strategy with field execution, giving her a perspective on how AI needs to work once it reaches the operational side of a consumer goods business.
Effie.ai has also been building toward this model through AI agents designed to close the gap between headquarters and the store. In a recent example shared by the company, an agentic retail system used with Nestlé was reported to reduce merchandiser time per visit by 56% and supervisor workload by 55%.
For the broader enterprise AI market, the appointment points to a shift in what companies may look for from AI leadership. Technical expertise remains important, but understanding the workflows, incentives and commercial realities of an industry can be just as important when the goal is to move AI from a pilot into everyday operations.
