SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIO

News Editor

Provenance has appointed a Strategic Advisory Board as AI-driven product search and recommendation gain influence in online retail.

The London-based company said the board will support its next phase of growth, advising on product strategy, enterprise partnerships and its approach to verified product data in digital commerce.

Members include Dr Orlando Machado, an independent non-executive director and AI adviser who previously served as Chief Data Officer at The LEGO Group and held leadership roles at Aviva and MoneySuperMarket. Also joining are Colleen Kerr, who leads the AI Economy Institute within Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab; Geert Eichhorn, Executive Innovation Director at Monks; and Brock Simon, Partner at Bain & Company.

Provenance works with brands and retailers to validate product claims and turn them into structured data for use by consumers and AI systems. Its clients include Holland & Barrett, Unilever, Estée Lauder, THG and Ocado.

The appointment reflects a wider shift in retail discovery as consumers increasingly use AI tools to evaluate products. Adobe Digital Insights found that traffic from AI sources to retail sites rose 393% year on year in the first quarter of 2026.

That shift is changing the role of product information. Details such as sustainability claims, ingredient benefits and sourcing statements often remain buried in marketing copy rather than presented as structured data that machine systems can read consistently.

Data focus

Chief Executive Officer Sarah Arana-Morton set out Provenance’s view of the shift in online commerce.

“AI is rapidly becoming the primary lens through which consumers discover products. As that shift happens, the data that sits behind products – what they contain, where they come from and what claims can be verified – becomes critical infrastructure.”

“Our advisory board brings together leaders who understand how AI, enterprise transformation and global brands intersect. Their experience will help guide Provenance as we build the independent proof layer for the next generation of digital commerce.” Arana-Morton said.

Provenance argues that retailers and brands face a new challenge as AI systems mediate more product searches and recommendations. In that environment, consistent, verified product information becomes more important for visibility in search results and recommendations.

Eichhorn said the shift could extend beyond search interfaces to AI systems making decisions on behalf of consumers.

“The next battleground in commerce isn’t just AI-powered search – it’s agents making purchasing decisions on consumers’ behalf, filtering by values, price and trust without the consumer actively choosing in the moment. For brands, that changes everything. Your product data will determine whether an agent recommends you or passes you over. Provenance is building the infrastructure that makes verified claims legible to those systems.” Eichhorn said.

Trust issues

Machado pointed to a longstanding issue in large organisations, where the same product may be described differently across channels, regions and internal systems.

“One of the biggest challenges organisations face is not access to data, but consistency and trust in the underlying information. The same product can be described differently across channels, regions and systems, making it difficult to scale reliably and even harder to build consumer trust. As AI becomes more deeply embedded into commerce and decision-making, those weaknesses become far more visible. Models trained on inconsistent or unverified claims will inevitably produce inconsistent results. What Provenance is working on is fundamentally important: improving the quality, structure and credibility of the information that AI systems – and consumers – increasingly rely on.” Machado said.

Simon framed the issue as a commercial one for brands that have spent years refining conventional search marketing.

“Brands have spent years optimising for search. The ones thinking ahead are already asking a different question: how do we show up when an AI is making the recommendation, not a consumer typing a query? That requires a different kind of investment – in the credibility and structure of your underlying product data, not just your content strategy. That’s the commercial case Provenance is making, and it’s the right moment to be making it.” Simon said.

More than 370 retailers and brands use Provenance’s services, according to the company. Its backers include S4S Ventures, Fiftyfive Capital, Working Capital Fund, Digital Currency Group, The Brandtech Group and Alumni Ventures.

The board brings together expertise in AI, public policy, digital marketing and corporate transformation as retailers and consumer goods groups reassess how product data is managed and presented to machine-led systems.