Podcast: is ChatGPT or Claude the new pricing software?
Analysts already ask ChatGPT what to charge. We sat down with Accenture's Polina Pavlova on what LLMs really change in pricing - and where AI alone breaks.
Pricing analysts are already doing it: competitor prices pasted into a chat window, "what should I charge?" typed underneath, and a confident answer back in seconds. No procurement process, no onboarding project, no license fee. Which raises a question most pricing software vendors would rather not say out loud - is a general-purpose LLM the new pricing software?
In this episode of the Retailgrid Podcast we put that question to Polina Pavlova, Senior Manager at Accenture, who leads pricing transformations for large B2B and B2C companies. The conversation covers what tools like ChatGPT and Claude actually change in pricing work, where relying on AI alone breaks down, and what pricing management looks like from here.
What the episode covers
- AI's real impact on B2B pricing. Where LLMs are changing how pricing teams reason about deals, quotes, and price communication - and why "communicating the price" is a bigger part of pricing work than most tooling admits.
- Optimism vs. threat. How pricing professionals are reacting to AI entering their discipline, and what separates the teams that benefit from the teams that get displaced.
- AI in B2C pricing. What changes when the catalogue is 50,000 SKUs instead of 50 negotiated contracts.
- The risks of relying on AI alone. Why confident answers without oversight, rules, and an audit trail are a liability rather than a strategy - and where human judgment stays in the loop.
- Faster pricing projects. How prototyping and quick wins are collapsing the traditional months-long pre-project phase into days.
- Ethics and the future of pricing management. What responsible AI pricing looks like, and where the discipline goes next.
Episode timestamps
- 00:00 - Introduction
- 00:41 - Polina's background in pricing transformations
- 02:44 - AI's impact on B2B pricing
- 04:21 - Optimism vs. threat in AI adoption
- 06:50 - The role of AI in B2C pricing
- 08:03 - Risks of relying solely on AI
- 10:35 - The importance of human oversight in pricing
- 12:02 - Merging pre-project and project phases
- 14:25 - Prototyping and quick wins in pricing
- 16:24 - Ethical considerations in AI pricing
- 18:53 - The future of pricing management
Where this leaves pricing teams
Our view at Retailgrid: the chat window is becoming the interface for pricing work, but it is not the system of record. A confident answer with no audit trail does not survive a CFO review, and 50,000 SKUs re-decided from scratch every morning is not a pricing strategy. That is why we build pricing as explainable, auditable, rules-based decisions - with AI doing the heavy lifting inside boundaries a human sets. You can see how that works in practice on our agentic pricing platform page.
Watch the full episode on YouTube, and subscribe to the Retailgrid channel for future episodes on pricing strategy and AI in retail.