11Ants Analytics

11Ants Analytics is a cloud-based retail analytics platform designed for large grocery retailers and supermarkets.

Reviewed by 7wData

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Publisher review

11Ants Analytics is a cloud-based retail analytics platform designed for large grocery retailers and supermarkets. Built on Microsoft Azure and trusted by retailers operating more than 4,000 stores across eight countries, the platform ingests and organizes millions of daily data points from loyalty programs, POS systems, and promotional platforms. It maintains 27 months of rolling historical data and processes complex queries in seconds—typically tasks that took analysts three days now complete in fifteen minutes.

The platform features an intuitive interface accessible to non-technical users, enabling category managers, merchandisers, and executives to extract actionable insights without requiring data analyst support. Originally founded as a University of Waikato spinout using 11 machine learning algorithms, 11Ants was acquired in March 2015 by a consortium of Aimia Canada and Air New Zealand. In March 2026, the company launched Ant, an AI Retail Expert that lets anyone ask business questions in plain English and receive evidence-based answers grounded in their data.

Core capabilities include basket analysis, category management, customer behavior analysis, customer segmentation, and promotion evaluation. The platform integrates with major data warehouses including Microsoft SQL Server, Databricks, Oracle, Amazon Redshift, Teradata, SAP, and Snowflake, making it suitable for mid-market to enterprise retailers with $100 million or more in annual revenue.

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How it works

  1. Ant AI Retail Expert

    Conversational AI assistant that accepts natural-language questions about retail data and delivers decision-ready answers with context and recommended next actions.

  2. Basket Analysis

    Analyzes shopping patterns and product affinity to understand what customers buy together and optimize merchandising and promotions.

  3. Customer Segmentation

    Groups shoppers into meaningful behavioral segments for targeted loyalty programs, promotions, and personalized campaigns.

  4. Promotion Evaluation

    Measures lift, ROI, and incremental sales from promotional campaigns with fast query execution on 27 months of historical data.

  5. Category Management

    Enables merchandisers to analyze category performance, assortment effectiveness, and customer preferences to optimize shelf space and product mix.

  6. Multi-Warehouse Integration

    Connects to SQL Server, Databricks, Oracle, Redshift, Teradata, SAP, and Snowflake with encrypted data transfer via Microsoft Azure infrastructure.

  7. Rolling 27-Month Data Retention

    Maintains historical customer behavior data spanning nearly two years for trend analysis, seasonal pattern detection, and year-over-year comparisons.

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

  • Dramatically accelerates analysis time (3-day tasks completed in 15 minutes) via intelligent data architecture and pre-built query optimization.
  • Democratizes insights by allowing non-technical team members to answer their own questions without analyst gatekeeping.
  • Purpose-built for grocery and retail, not a generic business intelligence tool—understands retail metrics, seasonality, and KPIs natively.

Trade-offs

  • High barrier to entry: no free tier, targets mid-market to enterprise retailers only ($100M+ annual revenue), making it inaccessible to smaller grocers.
  • Acquisition by Aimia and Air New Zealand has not produced visible product innovation until Ant (March 2026)—long maturation between 2015 acquisition and AI launch.
  • Limited public visibility on pricing, customer count, and adoption metrics; most details discoverable only through vendor contact or analyst research.

Pricing context

11Ants does not publish pricing tiers publicly. The platform is sold as a SaaS solution on a custom basis and requires a minimum revenue threshold (typically retailers with $100M+ annual sales). No free tier is available, but the company offers free trials.

Pricing is usage-based and account-based, likely varying by store count, data volume, and feature set. As of 2026, the platform is available via cloud deployment only, hosted on Microsoft Azure. Contact required for specific pricing quotes.

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Sources

Reporting on this tool draws on these publicly available sources.

  1. www.11ants.com — Company origin as University of Waikato spinout, 11 machine learning algorithms, core features and capabilities
  2. www.11ants.com — Platform architecture, data retention, integration with major data warehouses, Microsoft Azure deployment, query performance
  3. www.morningstar.com — March 2026 launch of Ant AI Retail Expert, natural language capabilities, retail use cases
  4. www.marketscreener.com — March 2015 acquisition by Aimia Canada and Air New Zealand, previous investors including WaikatoLink and Endeavour Capital