AI Afterhours: Retail & CPG

Retail planning is still broken in a very familiar way. Too much historical logic. Not enough live signal. Too much cluster thinking. Not enough operating truth.Season 1 of AI Afterhours, Signals & Noise, is about how organizations cut through noise, find the signals that matter, and turn them into better decisions. In Episode 1, Retail & CPG, I sat down with Bob, Harsha, and Varun to break down why stockouts, overstocks, and missed margin are usually not isolated failures.They are the downstream consequence of weak signals, slow planning cycles, and planning systems that still assume stores behave the same when they do not. Bob made that real from the operator side. Harsha explained why forecast quality depends on better signals, simulation, and planner knowledge that usually never makes it into the system. Varun brought it back to the business. If you are still planning backward, you are probably bleeding margin forward.Next week we get more specific with Episode 2, Margin Protection at Scale. Same category. Same pressure. Closer to the money.Thank you for tuning in! See you next week. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit substack.aztra.ai