Every major shift in retail marketing over the past decade has come from one central idea: operators deserve tools that think the way they do. Tools that respond to customers in real time, adapt to behavior, and remove the friction between ideas and execution.
As the cannabis retail landscape becomes more competitive, more regulated, and more dependent on first-party data, the next evolution of operator-first marketing is clear: it’s time to move beyond one-off campaigns, and into fully automated, intelligent customer journeys.
At AIQ, that future is taking shape in our next major product expansion: Flows. A new way to build event-based, action-based, and behavior-based journeys that connect your marketing, loyalty, segmentation, and data tools in a single, intuitive workspace.
And while Flows is still in development, its direction tells a much bigger story about where the entire AIQ ecosystem is heading.
Retailers have already mastered the basics: signups, blasts, segmentation, loyalty promotions. But the most successful operators aren’t just sending messages, they’re designing systems that run on their behalf.
Flows takes this to the next level by enabling:
When a customer signs up, abandons a cart, makes a purchase, or joins a specific audience, Flows will allow retailers to automatically trigger the right actions. Whether it’s a welcome series, a post-purchase follow-up, or a reactivation sequence, the journey starts the moment the customer does.
AIQ’s segmentation engine is already the most advanced in the industry. Flows builds upon that foundation with real-time splits based on audiences, behaviors, and conditions, allowing journeys to fork, adapt, and personalize at scale.
Every node in a Flow, whether it’s a message, split, discount, or trigger, connects directly to the rest of AIQ’s ecosystem. That means consistent attribution windows, shared audience logic, and seamless reporting tied to actual sales outcomes.
This evolution moves retail teams from “send campaigns regularly” to “design journeys that build relationships.” And in a market where competition is rising and attention is shrinking, that shift matters.
Many platforms offer journey builders. But cannabis operators need something much more specific:
And that’s where AIQ stands apart.
Flows isn’t a generic drag-and-drop builder. It’s powered by the same data intelligence that fuels AIQ segmentation, audience logic, and retail performance analytics. That means the triggers, splits, and automations you build directly reflect the reality of cannabis retail, not a generic CPG template.
In Flows, message nodes draw from your existing campaign templates, discount nodes pull from your discount builder, and analytics link directly to the performance reporting you already rely on.
Operators don’t need new systems, they need smarter connections between the systems they already trust.
When a customer reaches a split, AIQ evaluates their audience membership in real time. No overnight waits. No batch processing delays. The logic updates as the customer behaves, creating journeys that feel live, even when they aren’t.
This is the most exciting evolution: AI-driven conditions.
Imagine delaying a promotional text if snowfall is over 3”. Or triggering a celebratory discount if the local sports team wins. Or adapting messaging based on weather, events, or external triggers.
Flows introduces the first version of AI Splits, opening the door to a world where retail automation becomes reactive, contextual, and personalized beyond customer data alone.
The industry is shifting fast:
Retailers who rely on one-off campaigns will always fall behind operators who build systems that work 24/7.
Flows is designed to help retailers:
Consumers expect personalization. This is how retailers deliver it at enterprise scale.
