What if your product packaging could do more? If you belong to the packaging or the paper industry, you’ve probably noticed the massive shift toward sustainability and digitalization in recent years. Did you know 72% of consumers are willing to pay more for products with sustainable packaging (1). Also, 63% of consumers prefer products with personalized packaging (2).

AI Opportunities Across the Packaging & Paper Value Chain

Well, the great news is that if you embrace AI, the trends we discussed above aren’t challenges; they’re opportunities. Gen AI can help you optimize design to cut waste and create personalized experiences, which improves brand recall.

1. AI in Design Optimization

Many organizations face slow and costly design iterations when developing sustainable packaging. Design inefficiencies can result in more than 20% of additional costs in production due to rework and material waste.

By implementing AI in design optimization, companies can now streamline their development processes, reducing design time by 30% and material usage by 15%. This is achieved by integrating generative design algorithms within your existing computer-aided design (CAD) software. Nike and Under Armor are well known for using generative design algorithms within their CAD to create lighter, more ergonomic, and sustainable soles for shoes and sneakers. Using AI, you can create multiple design iterations within strict parameters like material weight, sustainability metrics, recyclability, and procurement parameters.

We have helped a manufacturing company implement and train an ML model on historical data and material properties to predict packaging performance and optimize it for sustainability. This helped them reduce product weight by 15% for a few products, saving millions of pounds of plastic annually.

2.Enhancing Consumer Engagement Through Personalization

In a market where customer experience is everything, static packaging designs are becoming obsolete. CPG Companies like Coca Cola and Nutella (The Ferrero Group), along with fashion brands like Louis Vuitton, have been running personalization packaging campaigns for quite some time now with each campaign leading to better sales. Now with Gen AI, personalization can be achieved even for smaller companies within the US.

You can easily develop a web-based platform for consumers to customize packaging with AI-powered suggestions (e.g. personalized messages, images, color schemes and more). Natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision technologies analyze consumer inputs to generate unique, compelling designs that resonate with individual preferences.

3.Precision Demand Forecasting

The search for more efficient inventory management never ends, particularly for manufacturing, retail, and packaging companies. This year alone, we’ve spent countless hours (more likely days) discussing with clients and prospects the benefits of adopting AI demand forecasting for optimizing inventory. Companies can reduce forecast errors by more than 20% and save inventory costs. AI solutions integrated with enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) systems can analyze historical sales data, market trends, and promotional campaigns to deliver unprecedented forecasting accuracy.

We recently helped a CPG client predict the demand in various geographies to optimize distribution of its products. The solution gave insights into packaging needs, design for printing and route of distribution. Based on various factors in Europe, late-stage printing was recommended, and it was easier for labelling products in Spain for a few countries. Customized printing was needed for a few products to meet local regulatory compliance.  

AI-Powered Packaging Solutions

The future lies in innovative AI-powered packaging solutions. Based on our experience working with clients, we have developed AI accelerators which help companies easily deploy AI for intelligent, sustainable and personalized packaging.  

Konverge AI’s Personalized Design API enables businesses to seamlessly incorporate customized packaging design capabilities into any of their digital platforms. Additionally, our Demand Forecasting Engine, a pre-trained ML model, is capable of customization and deployment for precise demand prediction across various packaging types.

As AI and agentic systems evolve, we expect more innovations and breakthroughs in autonomous decision-making and advanced analytics, driving data-driven insights in the packaging & paper industry.

Want to discuss how AI can help? Book an AI strategy session

References:

1. https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/paper%20and%20forest%20products/our%20insights/sustainability%20in%20packaging%20us%20survey%20insights/sustainability-in-packaging-us-survey-insights.pdf
2. https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/consumer-business/deloitte-uk-consumer-review-mass-personalisation.pdf