Carolina Toussaint

Consumer and Market Insights Assistant Manager

Unilever

Carolina leads consumer and market insights for Unilever Foods Europe's condiments category, where she partners with innovation and brand teams to ground product decisions in real consumer understanding. Born and raised in Mexico City, Carolina moved to the Netherlands nearly five years ago to complete her master's degree at Maastricht University and joined Unilever shortly after graduating. She began her career in CMI covering the Benelux market, before expanding her remit in 2025 to lead insights for condiments across Europe.

Sessions

Jun 23

12:05 PM - 12:25 PM GMT+2

Blue Stage

AI for Qual Research

Concept Testing

Innovation

Product Development

AI-Led "Design Thinking" For Product Innovation

Carolina Tousaint (Unilever Foods Europe) and Lisa Nel (Conveo) show how AI-led research delivers design thinking at scale, without losing depth. Across four iterative rounds and 378 AI-moderated interviews, Unilever sharpened 14 concepts into 2 NIQ BASES superstar propositions. A blueprint for embedding AI into innovation, with the rigour insights teams demand.

Key Takeaways:

1. How design thinking and AI fit: from surfacing human tensions to refining solutions at scale

2. A model for building superstar concepts through iterative, evidence-based optimisation

3. The business case for AI: faster cycles, human-grounded decisions, incremental growth

Also speaking

Lisa Nel

Client Officer, Conveo

Speaker

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