News
Steve Wiley
Active Intelligence Director
Unlocking the Future of Decision-Making: Active Intelligence Insights at CES 2025
As we step into 2025, it’s my first time at CES, and I couldn’t be more excited to experience this epicentre of innovation firsthand. Representing Etc. at the show is an incredible opportunity to dive into emerging technologies and this year, we’re sharing more on how we’re helping organisations transform their decision-making with our Active Intelligence insights platform.
The platform represents a transformative leap in data-driven decision making across industry. From retail to transport, real estate, and beyond, it provides businesses with the tools to better understand their customers, optimize services, and drive efficiencies. By harnessing the power of advanced data science and generative AI, our platform translates billions of aggregated and anonymised data points into actionable insights. I’ve spoken on here before about the power of the insight, but I want to dive deeper into the impact across retail and transport sectors.
Retail
With retailers facing increasing competition and customer expectations continually evolving, data-driven decision-making has become vital to staying ahead. Today we’re providing insights that help retailers better understand store footfall, transport modes, crowd movement and infrastructure needs. These unique insights are helping brands increase operational efficiencies, make more impactful decisions on store placement and opening hours, and assess store performance. Understanding patterns in traffic flow and crowd movement means that more precise operational choices can be made, from pinpointing which stores should open 24/7 to the impact events have had on footfall. Alongside the operational impact it means that customer experience can be made even better too.
Transport
I’m sure we have all been there, late for our meeting or missing dinner because of a delayed train or heavy traffic – but by providing transport operators and city planners with insights into traffic patterns – including peak times, passenger flow and transport modes we’re helping them not only ease congestion but support route planning, management and optimisation of existing services. Whether that’s scheduling more services to meet demand or enabling better diversion planning, passenger experiences can be improved with the insights we unlock for journeys across the UK.
Over time naturally we’ve seen road traffic patterns change and as they’ve evolved post -COVID levels, transport organisations and operators are seeking a deeper understanding of how populations travel to support their planning. An example of this is with Transport for Wales who have an ambition to increase journeys by active travel or public transport across Wales by 2040. Achieving this vision relies on reliable, accurate data that gives a comprehensive understanding of current travel trends and patterns and how these are changing over time. Mobility insights can be tailored for continuous applications or specific, one-off events, offering flexible solutions to meet diverse needs.
The daily mobility data we provide, offers invaluable insights into passenger travel patterns, enabling the railway network to operate more efficiently and make smarter, data-driven decisions for ongoing improvements.
For one-off events, a great example is how Transport for Greater Manchester optimises transport services and minimises congestion by using mobility insights. These insights help them understand travel patterns on event days at the Co-op Arena, leading to smoother journeys and an enhanced visitor experience.
The demand for such data-driven insights continues to grow. In fact, over 70% of global organisations have made significant investments in data to enhance decision-making. Our platform is designed to meet this demand, blending movement and location insights enriched with population data to provide businesses with a comprehensive view of their operations and opportunities.
As I navigate my first CES, I’m looking forward to connecting with industry leaders and showcasing how our platform is unlocking the power of data. If you’re attending, come find us at CES Unveiled on stand 420 on 5th January and Showstoppers on 7th January. Let’s discuss how we can drive your business forward with the power of insight.