In a bid to enhance its marketing strategies and boost sales, Tesco has teamed up with Adobe to leverage artificial intelligence for analyzing customer information, as the companies have announced.

This alliance will merge Adobe’s AI capabilities with insights gathered from Tesco’s Clubcard loyalty program, which boasts a reach of over 24 million households in the UK. This program offers its members various promotions, product suggestions, and discounts. While the Clubcard initiative currently utilizes purchasing data to provide these benefits, this partnership aims to broaden the application of that data across digital platforms. Tesco has clarified that the system will incorporate Clubcard data into its current customer data framework without any modifications to data usage terms or consent processes.

According to Tesco, this integration is set to enhance targeting accuracy across its website, mobile app, and marketing communications. The system will tailor messages and offers according to each customer’s shopping habits and personal preferences. The collaboration also emphasizes aligning promotions, messaging, and content with individual behaviors across different channels.

Holding a 28% share of the UK grocery market, Tesco has pinpointed digital engagement, online services, rapid delivery through its Whoosh platform, its Marketplace, and retail media as critical areas of focus. For the 13-week period ending May 2025, Tesco reported a total group revenue of £16.4 billion, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 4.6%.

The partnership will also feature a co-development model facilitated by the Tesco x Adobe Innovation Lab. Engineers from Adobe will collaborate with Tesco’s personalization and AI divisions to create and test applications utilizing customer data alongside Adobe’s AI tools.

Technologies such as agentic AI and Adobe Firefly will be employed to craft marketing materials, including images and text. This approach integrates transaction data with customer interaction signals to produce and convey content, automating content delivery decisions through agentic AI.

Both companies noted that this system is designed to dynamically adjust content and offers in near real-time based on changing customer interactions.

Tesco’s AI Efforts Beyond the Adobe Collaboration

Additionally, Tesco’s retail media platform utilizes Clubcard data to provide advertising and evaluate campaign effectiveness tied to customer purchases. It effectively connects marketing activities with transaction data across both online and physical stores, enabling brands to conduct campaigns using first-party consumer data.

Tesco is also experimenting with an AI-driven assistant in its mobile app that can assist in meal planning and create shopping lists based on user preferences and purchase history. Currently being piloted with approximately 280,000 staff members, the assistant is expected to expand more broadly in the future.

Separately, Tesco has signed a three-year partnership with AI company Mistral to develop tools for internal operations, data analysis, and content creation. This collaboration includes establishing a joint AI lab where teams from both companies will work together on development projects.

AI is already being utilized by Tesco for purposes such as demand forecasting, delivery logistics, and enhancing customer engagement through its loyalty program. The company has significantly increased its technology workforce over the last five years to strengthen these initiatives.

Moreover, Tesco continues to invest in both its physical and digital infrastructure, with plans to launch over 70 new convenience stores across the UK, including locations previously owned by Amazon Fresh, alongside continued expansion of its Tesco Express network.

While Tesco manages the Clubcard initiative, competitors Sainsbury’s operates its Nectar program, and Morrisons has its More loyalty scheme. Amazon similarly utilizes customer data within its grocery and broader retail platform.

Becky Brock, Tesco’s director of group customer digital transformation, highlighted that this partnership will enable the retailer to engage customers more promptly. “Collaborating with Adobe enables us to be even more responsive to shopper needs,” she noted, stating that the focus is on delivering relevant messages, savings, and insights to customers at opportune times.

Nathan Hancock, vice president and managing director for the UK, Ireland, Middle East, and Africa at Adobe, remarked that the partnership merges Tesco’s customer data with Adobe’s AI capabilities to enhance engagement across various channels.

(Photo by Samuel Regan-Asante)

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