AI training at Candy Kittens

Candy Kittens is a gourmet sweets brand founded in London in 2012 by Jamie Laing and Ed Williams. It makes vegan sweets for adults, alongside its Smittens range and Treets savoury snacks.

Its sweets are sold through Tesco, Sainsbury's, Asda, Boots, John Lewis and Selfridges, as well as online and in its own shop. In 2022 it became the first UK sugar confectionery brand to achieve B Corp certification.

Candy Kittens wanted to move beyond general curiosity about AI and turn it into something useful across the business. The team already had ideas for where AI might help, but confidence and capability varied widely between roles.

Before the workshop, the team rated its confidence using AI tools at just 40% on average, so the training had to work for complete beginners and keen users in the same room.

The whole business came together for the workshop:

• Leadership: the founder and CEO, and the finance, marketing, sales and operations leads
• Commercial and sales: commercial, account and customer retention managers
• Finance and operations: finance, operations and production planning
• Creative and marketing: creative design, and social and content
• Office: culture, office and executive support

General Purpose delivered a hands-on Mastering ChatGPT workshop for Candy Kittens in March 2024, as part of a team offsite in London. It was built around the real tasks people brought into the room, with practical prompting for analysis, creative ideas and day-to-day operations.

• The team's confidence using AI rose from 40% before the workshop to 90% afterwards.
• After the workshop, attendees expect to save an average of 5 hours each per week using AI.
• 94% would recommend the training to a colleague.

• Contract summariser: pulls out payment terms and commercial clauses
• Accounts analyser: summarises accounts and calculates key ratios
• Sales forecaster: forecasts from sales and order patterns to plan production
• EPOS analysis: processes retailer sales data and tracks promotions
• Sales email replies: tailors replies to inbound sales emails
• Creative brainstorming: researches other brands and drafts social copy