The Dual Customer Opportunity: Building Value Systems That Work for Both Humans and Machines

February 5, 2026

Image: Google, Amazon AI Shoppers

Something remarkable is emerging from recent research: the same operational changes that earn human trust weekly are precisely what makes companies discoverable to AI shopping agents. From my board and advisory work, I am observing a convergence that creates genuine competitive advantage for those who recognise it.

Through my board roles and working with consumer goods innovators globally, I keep discovering something that reshapes how I think about competitive advantage: what if the same investment serves two completely different customer types?

This is not about choosing between them. It is about recognising a convergence that creates opportunity.

What I Am Discovering Across Boards

Deloitte's 2026 Consumer Products Industry Global Outlook surveyed 300 senior executives across food and beverage companies globally (Deloitte, 2026). The research confirms what I see in boardrooms: we are navigating seven significant industry changes simultaneously, from AI deployment to supply chain resilience to productivity transformation.

Here is the pattern I find fascinating. Consumer behaviour is evolving in two directions that might seem contradictory but are actually converging.

Human customers are evolving: 74% switched brands in the past year (Capgemini, 2026), but this is not chaos. They are choosing based on values, transparency, and performance they verify weekly. They are becoming more intentional about where value comes from.

Machine customers are emerging: 45% of consumers already use AI for part of their buying journey (IBM Institute for Business Value, 2026), with this expected to reach nearly 50% of online shoppers by 2030 (Morgan Stanley, 2025). This is not replacing human judgment. It is augmenting it.

From my Innovation Gamechangers work evaluating emerging technologies, I am seeing these are not separate trends requiring different strategies. They are the same shift: toward verifiable value.

Why This Creates Strategic Opportunity

Through my global food systems experience from Mars to Fonterra to Mondelez across geographies, I learned that lasting competitive advantage comes from building systems that work across different markets and customer needs.

Here is what makes the current shift exciting: the operational investments needed to serve one customer type create the foundation for serving the other.

Consider what both customer types of value:

Humans seek transparent operations, verified sustainability credentials, and consistent quality delivery. They want authentic values alignment, not marketing claims.

AI agents evaluate structured product data, machine-readable certifications, and verified supply chain information. They assess based on materials, durability, and sustainability metrics (McKinsey Agentic Commerce Report, 2025).

The insight: both require the same thing. Transparent, verifiable operations generating trustworthy signals.

The Strategic Insight for Boards

From my board governance perspective, this convergence creates an unusual opportunity. The operational transformation many boards are already considering for human customer retention simultaneously builds the infrastructure for machine customer discoverability.

When we build transparent provenance systems for consumers who demand authentic sustainability stories, we generate the structured data AI agents require for algorithmic evaluation.

When we create verified quality metrics for consumers who evaluate value weekly, we produce the machine-readable credentials that AI purchasing systems prioritise.

What This Means for Investment

Through my experience co-founding Monash Food Innovation, I saw how breakthrough value comes from systems that serve multiple purposes simultaneously.

The insight I am sharing with boards: we are already investing in operational transparency for human customers. Extending those systems to be machine-readable creates new value from existing transformation.

This is not additional cost. This is capturing more value from strategic investments already underway.

What excites me about this convergence: boards can build once and serve both customer types, creating defensible competitive advantages that isolated marketing or technology investments cannot replicate.

How is your organisation measuring value creation across both human and machine customers? 

What opportunities are you discovering in serving both simultaneously?