As the UK’s largest supermarket, Tesco serves millions of customers across the country every week. From family fuelling weekly shops to lunchtime meal deals, and last-minute birthday card purchases to the latest Clubcard offers, the supermarket is synonymous with how the nation shops, eats, and saves.

Talking to Tesco’s newly appointed UK CEO Ashwin Prasad at this year’s Adobe Summit in London gave us the opportunity to dig even deeper into this inspiring success story. And what did we learn? The most impressive thing about Tesco today isn’t limited to its reach and reputation – it’s the bold and ambitious transformation journey that’s underway across every element of the brand’s customer experience.

A new chapter in Tesco’s customer-centric journey

With a 28% market share and £70 billion in revenue, Tesco’s ambition is not just to be the biggest supermarket in the country – it’s to be the most customer-focused. Under Ashwin’s leadership, the business is entering a new era: one that brings together its proud legacy with a digitally enabled, data-driven future.

From Orkney to Penzance, Tesco’s national scale and regional depth mean it can reach almost every household in the UK. But what truly differentiates Tesco is its ability to connect and turn the resulting data, loyalty, and human insight from that reach into everyday decisions that help customers save money, shop smarter, and feel understood.

After all, Ashwin’s vision is one shaped by serving Tesco for over 15 years, built on creating a deep connection between its customers, commercial operations, and communities. As UK CEO, his focus is on unlocking future opportunities and driving growth; leveraging new capabilities such as personalisation and working more innovatively with suppliers to deliver products that are healthier, more sustainable, and affordable; and making sure Tesco shows up for customers no matter how they choose to shop, and across all its UK businesses.

Why personalisation matters, and why now

During a time of intense competition, cost pressures, and evolving shopper expectations, Tesco is embracing personalised customer experiences. Not just as a driver of growth – but as an opportunity to earn customer trust, loyalty, and lifetime value.

At the heart of this is Tesco Clubcard. Celebrating the big 30 this year, with a year packed with amazing deals, discounts and offers that are all about giving their customers more. Clubcard is more than a loyalty scheme – it’s a platform for customer connection. Built on three decades of data, insight, and innovation, Tesco is evolving this foundation to create deeper, more personalised relationships with every shopper across every channel.

Tesco anticipates an increase in content demand as it moves towards 1:1 engagement. Adobe solutions – such as Adobe Analytics, Adobe Journey Optimizer, Adobe Workfront, and Adobe Real-Time CDP – act as the engine behind this transformation.

On the creative side, Adobe Express and Adobe Firefly are enabling creative teams to produce more assets faster, and with utter confidence in brand consistency and commercial safety. And all work together in perfect balance, supercharged by a powerful foundation of AI.

We’re also working together to evolve Tesco’s content ecosystem, creating a content supply chain that connects creative thinking to data-driven decision-making and AI-powered delivery. It’s a new way of working – one that marries creativity with orchestration, while always putting the customer at the centre.

For Tesco, this isn’t just about marketing – it’s about enhancing every moment a customer interacts with the brand. Creativity makes the experience meaningful. AI makes it responsive and efficient. And personalisation ensures every moment and touchpoint is relevant, helpful, and human.

Creativity at the core

Of course, Tesco knows personalisation alone isn’t enough. It needs to be delivered in a way that feels seamless, human, and on-brand. Convenience is key: today’s customer expects more than relevance – they expect personalised experiences that respect their time, reflect their preferences, and make their lives easier.

That’s why creativity sits at the heart of Tesco’s transformation. Using Adobe, Tesco’s in-house teams can generate commercially safe content for campaign variations, social posts and animations, banner ads, and video captions at record speed – unlocking more time for creative thinking and innovation, all while remaining true and loyal to the iconic Tesco brand.

Adobe’s GenAI capabilities are acting as creative companions, not replacements – helping Tesco’s teams move faster while enhancing creative freedom and preserving the human touch that customers recognise as the hallmark of Tesco.

It’s a clear example of how AI can supercharge creativity (not dilute it), empowering marketers and creatives to focus on what matters most: connecting with customers.

A blueprint for retail, and beyond

While Tesco’s journey is rooted in retail, the lessons are universal. The ability to align data, teams, and technology around the customer. The importance of building a test-and-learn culture. The value of closing the loop between insight and action. These are priorities shared by customer-centred brands across every sector.

At Adobe, we believe the future belongs to businesses that bring creativity, marketing, and AI together as a unified capability, not siloed functions. Tesco is a physical manifestation of this intersection delivering true customer value.

To learn more, watch an overview video or take the Adobe CDP interactive tour.

Suzanne Steele is a customer-centric and people focused leader. She understands the importance of building client relationships to ensure competitive differentiation and growth, and how creating an employee centric culture focused around community aids business success. In her role at Adobe, Suzanne is responsible for taking the UKI business to new heights, as well as supporting customers of all sizes to realise their mission of delivering personalised experiences.

She has 25+ years’ experience in leading and motivating management teams across data, software and analytics businesses. Her work in North America, Australia, the UK and Singapore includes senior roles at Experian, Visa Europe, and Morgan Stanley.

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