TL;DR Summary
Lavazza built an AI assistant, “Lucy,” designed to give honest, insight-based feedback; not generic AI praise.
The persona was created using Lavazza’s proprietary research and powered by Stravito’s platform.
Lucy supports global teams with packaging decisions, creative evaluation, and media planning.
Grounded data reduces hallucinations and encourages constructive critique.
Ad Age featured the story as an example of how brands are redefining AI for real marketing impact.
The word is out and we couldn’t be more pleased; Ad Age just spotlighted how our latest innovation, Stravito AI Personas, is helping Lavazza Group make critical GTM decisions.
This collaboration forces people to reimagine what AI can look like inside a modern marketing organization, and how insights can be put to immediate, practical use.
Why Lavazza Group wanted a different kind of AI
Like many marketers, Lavazza Group’s teams were running into a challenge with generic AI tools: they delivered overly-positive, overly-polished responses that weren’t particularly helpful for making decisions. They needed something that would challenge assumptions, not validate them.
Using Stravito AI Personas, they built several virtual “team members” rooted in real consumer insight. For the U.S. market, that persona is Lucy—designed to give grounded, candid, and sometimes tough feedback.
Insight-led (and brutally honest)
What sets Lucy apart is her foundation. Lavazza trained her on a curated mix of high-quality research, interviews, and category analyses using the Stravito platform. Combined with a clear persona profile and prompting structure, Lucy gives the kind of constructive critique that helps teams strengthen ideas. Even if it stings.
AI Personas in action
One example highlighted in the Ad Age piece: Lavazza’s “Dolcevita” line. Lucy reviewed multiple packaging concepts and offered frank feedback rooted in the underlying consumer data. Her recommendations led the team to refine colors and visual cues before validating the winning approach through live testing across digital channels.
The result was greater clarity, stronger engagement, and a more efficient creative process
Read the full feature in 'Ad Age'
We’re incredibly proud to see this collaboration featured in Ad Age and even prouder of what Lucy represents: AI that’s grounded, honest, useful, and truly insight-led.
Read the full reprint of the Ad Age article here: https://adage.com/reprints/marketing-playbook-assistant-lavazza/
Stravito continues to partner with Lavazza to expand this approach across markets and use cases, from creative testing to media planning. And we’re thrilled to see more clients pioneering powerful, insight-led AI Personas of their own.
With AI Personas, the future is looking bright. And salty.
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