Online retailer The Very Group has signed a three-year agreement with software company UiPath to overhaul its pricing strategy through agentic AI.

The firms will work together to deploy an AI-powered pricing solution, with the aim of optimising The Very Group’s gross margin, stock management, and oversight of product performance and margins.

It will then roll this out across its retail brands, which include Very.co.uk and Littlewoods UK and Ireland.

The Very Group and UiPath will also work on more advanced features such as campaign simulations and optimisation and retail scenario planning.

Catherine Frame, director of retail solutions at UiPath, said that AI can “fundamentally reshape retail pricing” and help make use retail data for “intelligent, explainable decision-making”.

Sam Wright, chief customer and commercial officer at The Very Group, said: “We have a range of over 200,000 products and pricing is one of the most powerful levers in retail. The combination of our expertise and their data is helping Very stay ahead of shifting consumer demand and trends to make more informed decisions on pricing and merchandising.”

Over the past 18 months The Very Group has changed hands and could be set for another sale. In February 2025, US investment firm Carlyle became the controlling shareholder for The Very Group after over two decades under the control of the Barclay family.

In January, Sky News reported that Carlyle is preparing to sell The Very Group for approximately £2 billion. The publication added that Barclays and JP Morgan are being lined up to oversee the sale.

Last month, the Telegraph reported that the sale is currently underway, with administrators from PricewaterhouseCoopers telling the paper that several potential bidders had been approached but that a final sale was still months away.

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