The adoption of new technologies in the retail sector has become increasingly essential to generate value, operational efficiency, and market competitiveness in businesses, such as consumer goods companies. This topic was discussed by Andrés Stella, COO of Yalo, and Livia Seabra, Director of E-commerce and Emerging Channels at Mondelēz Brazil, in the panel ‘New Technologies in Value Generation’ at the APAS Show 2025, exploring how artificial intelligence and omnichannel strategies are reshaping relationships and the way of selling in B2B through WhatsApp. As a result, technological innovations have been enhancing the performance of salespeople as an allied force in achieving results, with a 34% increase in average purchase ticket in direct physical spaces with distributors, in addition to the growth of sales made through digital channels.
The advancement of using AI agents to automate and personalize the purchasing journey, especially on platforms where small and medium-sized retailers are already present, reveals the strategy adopted by Mondelēz Brazil to boost productivity through a resource that is so powerful and widely used by the Brazilian population. ‘Selling on WhatsApp will not replace physical salespeople. The trend is to grow, but also to transform the distributor’s salesperson from an order taker into a sales leader, boosting their average ticket, focusing on execution, categories, out-of-stock situations, building relationships, and analyzing less-sold products for efficient business management. Technology comes to add value and strengthen retail sales, implementing omnichannel strategies for greater customer acquisition and using AI agents for optimizing and personalizing the experience,’ reveals Livia.
This performance is even more impressive with Yalo’s recent launch: Oris. Introduced as the first intelligent sales agent, the technology brings a new type of ‘digital employee’ designed to replicate the best human salespeople, operating at scale and based on data. The agent is capable of understanding voice messages, making strategic recommendations, acting proactively, and selling in a contextualized, personalized, and scalable way on any channel, including voice calls and WhatsApp. During the panel, the companies revealed that the digitization of traditional channels has impacted the market swiftly and effectively, ranging from major industry brands to small neighborhood retailers, who have yet to implement other digital tools in their processes due to reasons such as investment, uncertainty, and lack of knowledge. Additionally, artificial intelligence integrated into platforms enables more direct communication tailored to the different consumer profiles, reducing friction during the journey.
‘With our partnership at Mondelēz Brazil, we boosted the company’s B2B sales by more than 15% via WhatsApp. I hear a lot that retailers are looking to digitize their customers, but the truth is they are already very digitalized, and the challenge is to find them on the right channels where they are present and active. With the advent of new technologies, we did not reduce the workforce; instead, we enhanced and strengthened it. Where to start? The first step is to experience it, test, adapt, explore — and then implement it consistently and coherently with your business, achieving strategically designed goals in your action plan,’ explains Andrés.
The launch of Oris reinforces the vision that technology acts as an allied, not substitutive, force for salespeople. The digital employee is capable of tripling conversion rates compared to traditional e-commerce platforms and increasing the average ticket by up to 40%, optimizing the end customer’s buying journey and enabling human salespeople to engage in more elaborate, creative, and strategic activities.
‘Innovations have arrived to support us, as has the integration of sales channels. Of course, there are obstacles, but by facing them, we can evolve, improve processes, increase sales, unite workforces, team members, customers, and partners, and thus bring the business closer to success in its entirety. Transformation requires attitude, not just openness to the new, but experiencing in practice the significant advantages of new technologies can indeed transform an operation,’ concludes Andrés Stella.
