Circana Engages Ode with Anthropic to Build Governed AI Agent Platform for Market Intelligence

Circana engaged Ode with Anthropic to build a governed agent platform for producing and delivering market intelligence, the company said on October 29, 2026. The Chicago-based consumer data firm said the work covers data processing, trend forecasting and product classification, with uncertain tasks routed to Circana specialists. GlobeNewswire published the announcement.

How the Circana Agent Platform Will Work

Circana and Ode are building a single environment where teams can build, test and deploy agents. Each agent is measured against expert-verified cases, and work the system cannot handle is sent to Circana specialists. The first three workflows are data processing, trend forecasting and product classification.

Ode is also training Circana engineers to build and deploy agents and enabling operators to own the goals and quality of agents in their areas. The teams describe the effort as production-ready capabilities on a reusable foundation rather than standalone productivity tools.

"AI only matters if it makes our clients' decisions better and faster," said Stuart Aitken, president and CEO of Circana. "We are turning some of our most complex, manual processes into fast, scalable workflows, with Circana's data and industry expertise firmly at the center."

Michael Rosenthal, president of Operations at Circana, said routing exceptions to experts lets the company "move faster and more consistently, without compromising the quality and oversight our clients expect." Chris Taylor, CEO of Ode, said AI works best when it gives experts more room to use their judgment.

Ode is an enterprise AI transformation company formally launched in 2026 through a partnership between Anthropic, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman and a consortium of global investors. It combines Anthropic's frontier AI models with a team of AI engineers.

Circana's Data Scale Behind the Platform

Circana's data platforms track $5.8 trillion in global consumer spend, 42 million actively tracked CPG and general merchandise items, and 477,000 stores across global retail networks, according to akta.pro company records. The same records list a private equity round of $1.2 billion in April 2024 led by Vestar Capital Partners. Circana was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Chicago.

Earlier Circana AI and Data Moves

Circana introduced AI-powered predictive commerce signals for its Complete Audiences solution on October 28, 2026, GlobeNewswire reported; a test across 13 brands showed performance gains of 11-36%, with a median uplift of 22%. On October 23, 2026, Chain Store Age reported that Circana's 22nd annual Holiday Purchase Intentions Study found 74% of shoppers plan to change habits to save money. Co-op extended its five-year strategic partnership with Circana, Prolificnorth reported on October 23, 2026, deepening its HIVE data platform across supply chain, quick commerce and wholesale over the next five years.

Circana's Case Study Rollout

Circana said it will share results and case studies as the work scales.