At the UNITI expo 2026 in Stuttgart, Oscar Smith Diamante (Editor-in-Chief, Mobility Plaza) sat down with A2i by OPIS leadership – Frodi Hammer (VP & Founder, A2i by OPIS, A Dow Jones company) and Jean Cherbonnier (Regional Director, OPIS, A Dow Jones Company) – to discuss how advanced AI and the emerging agentic era are redefining fuel pricing strategies in an increasingly volatile market.
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THE INTERVIEW:
- Smoothing out Market Volatility: In times of rapid market fluctuations, manual pricing strategies can lead to erratic price changes at the pump, which damages brand reputation and alienates consumers. An AI-driven “autopilot” solution acts like a flight stabilization system, making smooth, calculated intraday adjustments that protect both volume and business margins.
- Demystifying the “Black Box”: A common fear among retailers is that AI operates blindly, making unexplainable decisions. The A2i solution prioritizes explainability, giving pricing managers access to the reasoning behind every suggestion so they can remain fully informed and in control.
- The “Human-in-the-Loop” Philosophy: AI is not a replacement for human talent; it is an exoskeleton for the brain. Keeping the pricing manager in control ensures that proprietary company knowledge isn’t lost over time. The AI provides unprecedented data insights, but final strategic judgment always rests with the human.
- Entering the Agentic Era: Fuel pricing is transitioning from traditional machine learning to an agentic model. By utilizing large language models (LLMs) and agentic platforms on top of Dow Jones and OPIS data networks, retailers will soon be able to directly chat with their data to uncover exactly why a market moved, what happened in past cycles, and how to forecast next.