Centric Software will debut Centric AI, a new platform for product lifecycle decisions, at NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show Europe in Paris from September 15-17. The company reports that early customers using the AI alongside its existing product tools have reclaimed 90-98% of time spent on manual tasks like data entry and bill of materials creation, with gross margin improvements of 2-5% and sell-through gains up to 5%.
The launch targets product teams in fashion, outdoor, footwear, consumer electronics, home goods, and multi-category retail who manage growing product portfolios across more channels and regulatory requirements. Centric AI combines two decades of product data and workflows with conversational interactions, agentic workflows, and packaged applications.
Four ways product teams access Centric AI
Centric AI reaches users through four entry points. Centric AI Companion lets teams surface product and commercial data and trigger actions in natural language inside their existing tools. Centric AI MCP connects external AI systems while keeping product data, permissions, and business context under control.
Centric AI Agents hand off entire tasks end to end. The BOM & Tech Pack Agent turns a rough sketch or supplier document into a complete, multi-line bill of materials in minutes, automatically matching the closest style and building out fabric, trim, and packaging details. Centric AI Apps include Centric AI Studio, which applies generative AI to product ideation, design, and visual content creation.
Operational time savings and decision acceleration
"The near-term value of Centric AI is clear: take repetitive operational work off teams' plates and give people back time," said Vincent Picou, Chief AI Officer at Centric Software. "The greater opportunity is ahead-AI agents that evaluate more alternatives and weigh competing constraints in seconds, so every recommendation is already tested against the trade-offs that matter. Human expertise doesn't disappear. It moves to judgment calls and the exceptions only people can resolve."
The platform runs across Centric's existing suite, including Centric PLM, Centric Visual Boards, Centric Planning & Pricing, Centric Market Intelligence, and Centric PXM. The company positions the new AI layer as a unification of capabilities already embedded in those tools, rather than a standalone add-on.
Why this matters for product development teams
Product developers and merchandise planners face a widening gap between the volume of data they must evaluate and the time available to act. AI for Product Development is shifting from experimental pilots into daily operations, and Centric's early customer metrics offer a concrete benchmark: reclaiming the equivalent of a full workweek from manual administrative tasks while improving margin and sell-through by measurable points. Teams evaluating where to apply AI Agents & Automation inside their own product lifecycle can weigh these figures against internal baselines for BOM creation, approval routing, and status tracking.
Picou will present at the Exhibitor Big Ideas session on Tuesday, September 15 at 14:45. Centric Software will run live demos at Hall 4, Booth P-040 throughout the event.
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