NIQ Brings New AI and Automation Capabilities to Retail Space Planning and Merchandising

New AI and automation capabilities help retailers close execution gaps and scale merchandising decisions across every store.

NielsenIQ (NYSE: NIQ), a leading consumer intelligence company, today announced new AI and automation capabilities for NIQ Spaceman®, its retail space planning and merchandising platform trusted by more than 600 retailers across 65+ countries. The enhancements help retailers create store-specific planograms up to 50 times faster, identify execution and compliance gaps, and scale merchandising decisions across their store networks through expanded cloud-based access.

"Retailers are under increasing pressure to localize assortments, execute consistently across stores, and respond more quickly to changing shopper behavior," said Natalie Williams, SVP, Product at NIQ. "These enhancements help simplify that process by embedding agentic AI directly into merchandising workflows and automating traditionally manual planning tasks. That means teams can spend less time building and updating planograms and more time acting on opportunities. With greater automation, retailers can improve productivity, respond faster to change, and make more confident merchandising decisions at scale."

Key client benefits

• Work more efficiently with NIQ Optiq: Use conversational AI to create and optimize planograms through natural-language requests within Spaceman, reducing manual effort and helping merchandising teams complete traditionally time-intensive planning tasks more efficiently.
• Localize store-specific planograms at scale: Use Spaceman’s automation capabilities to create and maintain store-specific planograms across large store networks, accounting for local market conditions, assortments, and shopper behavior to bring greater localization to the shelf at scale.
• Improve execution through AI-powered compliance measurement: Automatically identify execution gaps and compliance issues across stores, reducing manual audits and driving a more consistent shopper experience.

These investments reflect NIQ's broader commitment to embedding trusted AI across retail workflows and delivering cloud-enabled solutions that help retailers move more seamlessly from planning to execution. By connecting intelligent automation, merchandising decisions, and execution measurement, NIQ is helping retailers drive greater efficiency, consistency, and business impact across their operations.

About NIQ

NielsenIQ (NYSE: NIQ) is a leading consumer intelligence company, delivering the most complete and trusted understanding of consumer buying behavior and revealing new pathways to growth. By combining an unmatched global data footprint and granular consumer and retail measurement with decades of AI modeling expertise, NIQ builds decision systems that help companies turn complex data into confident action.

With operations in more than 90 countries, NIQ covers approximately 82% of the world’s population and more than $7.4 trillion in global consumer spend. Through cloud-based platforms, advanced analytics and AI-driven insights, NIQ delivers The Full View™—helping brands and retailers understand what consumers buy, why they buy it, and what to do next.

For more information, please visit www.niq.com.

Spaceman® and NIQ® are registered trademarks (NIQ with additional pending applications); NIQ Optiq and The Full View™ are pending trademarks; all of Nielsen Consumer LLC or its affiliates. NielsenIQ® is a registered trademark licensed to NIQ. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release may contain forward-looking statements regarding anticipated timelines, benefits, features, and outcomes of the latest Spaceman enhancements. These statements reflect current expectations and projections based on available data, historical patterns, and various assumptions. Words such as 'expects,' 'anticipates,' 'projects,' 'believes,' 'forecasts,' and similar expressions are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. These statements are not guarantees of future outcomes and are subject to inherent uncertainties, including changes in consumer preferences, economic conditions, technological advancements, and competitive dynamics. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. While we strive to base our insights on reliable data and sound methodologies, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect future events or circumstances, except to the extent required by applicable law.

© 2026 Nielsen Consumer LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is changing with Spaceman®?

A: NIQ is investing in Spaceman to deliver a more scalable, cloud-enabled, and AI-powered merchandising solution. The latest enhancements combine cloud-based delivery, AI/ML-powered capabilities, and enhanced automation to help retailers and manufacturers plan faster, execute better, and grow smarter while turning merchandising decisions into measurable business outcomes.

Q: Why is NIQ investing in Spaceman?

A: Retailers are under increasing pressure to localize assortments, execute consistently across stores, and respond more quickly to changing shopper behavior. These investments are designed to reduce manual planning effort, help retailers scale localized merchandising decisions, and improve execution across large store networks.

Q: What makes the latest evolution of Spaceman different?

A: The latest evolution brings conversational AI, planogram automation, modeling, compliance measurement, and cloud-based access together within the Spaceman merchandising workflow. This enables retailers to move more efficiently from planning to store-specific execution while scaling decisions across their store networks.

Q: How does Spaceman help retailers?

A: Spaceman helps retailers create and maintain localized, store-specific planograms at scale, reduce manual planning effort, and improve visibility into merchandising execution and compliance. This helps teams respond more effectively to local market conditions, assortments, and shopper behavior while delivering greater consistency across their store networks.

Q: How does cloud-based access support Spaceman clients?

A: NIQ-managed Azure hosting enables clients to operate Spaceman on NIQ-managed cloud infrastructure, reducing reliance on internal IT resources while improving scalability, deployment speed, and overall platform performance.

Q: What AI capabilities are included in Spaceman?

A: NIQ Optiq brings conversational AI into Spaceman, enabling merchandising teams to use natural-language requests to create and optimize planograms with less manual effort. Spaceman also uses AI and machine learning to support planogram automation and compliance measurement, helping retailers localize merchandising at scale and identify execution gaps across stores.

Q: What is NIQ Optiq in Spaceman?

A: NIQ Optiq brings conversational AI into Spaceman, enabling users to translate natural-language requests into planogram actions. It works with the data already managed within Spaceman and its existing automation and machine learning capabilities to help merchandising teams create and optimize planograms with less manual effort.

Q: Who can benefit from Spaceman?

A: Spaceman is designed for retailers looking to modernize merchandising operations, improve planogram creation and execution, reduce manual effort and IT complexity, and scale localized, data-driven merchandising decisions across their store networks.

Q: What types of business decisions can Spaceman support?

A: Spaceman supports decisions across assortment planning, space planning, store-specific planogram creation, merchandising execution, compliance measurement, and category management. By connecting planning and execution, Spaceman helps retailers make more localized and consistent merchandising decisions across their store networks.

Q: How does Spaceman support NIQ's broader strategy?

A: These investments reflect NIQ's broader commitment to embedding trusted AI across retail workflows and delivering cloud-enabled solutions that help retailers move more seamlessly from planning to execution. By connecting intelligent automation, merchandising decisions, and execution measurement, NIQ is helping retailers drive greater efficiency and consistency across their operations.

Q: Is this the final phase of Spaceman's evolution?

A: No. The latest enhancements represent the next step in NIQ's ongoing investment in Spaceman. NIQ will continue to evolve the platform to help retailers simplify merchandising, improve execution, and respond more effectively to changing market conditions.

NIQ-GENERAL

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20261001493563/en/