Skip to content 
The GLP-1 conversation has been dominated by food and drink. Understandably so – the impact on eating behaviour is dramatic and well documented. But our new research reveals an equally significant story unfolding in the categories you might not expect.
GLP-1’s impact on the body goes far beyond appetite suppression. It drives a cascade of physical, emotional, and lifestyle changes that are creating entirely new need states – and entirely new commercial opportunities – in hydration, nutritional supplements, beauty, personal care, and even fashion.
The side effect economy
79% of GLP-1 users in our study report experiencing side effects. That’s not a marginal finding – it’s the vast majority. And crucially, the side effects aren’t deterring usage. With 85% of lapsed users willing to try again and 38% of current users planning to continue for over a year, these side effects are becoming an ongoing, managed reality rather than a short-term problem.
The most common side effects cluster into three areas of commercial opportunity:
- Digestive comfort and hydration: Constipation (25%), nausea/vomiting (19%), and diarrhoea (17%) are among the most prevalent side effects, all of which drive demand for hydration, electrolyte balance, and gut support.
- Energy and nutrition: Fatigue and low energy (20%) reflect the reduced caloric intake. Users are consuming significantly less bread (down 48%) and dairy (down 30%) – both key sources of B vitamins, iron, calcium, and protein.
- Beauty, skin, and hair: Hair loss or thinning (13%) and skin dryness (15%) are less common but perceived as among the most severe – with 24% of those affected rating hair side effects as serious enough to consider stopping treatment.
The great squeeze
This creates a polarisation that will reshape category dynamics, though not uniformly. The pace and severity will vary by category, by market, and by how quickly consumers in each segment delegate decisions to AI.
At one end, AI drives commoditisation. For products consumers do not care about choosing, the ones they know they need but are not invested in selecting, the AI will find the cheapest option from wherever stocks it. Laundry detergent, toilet paper – if you are the number one brand in those categories, you are probably fine, because consumers will search for you by name. If you are the number two or three, your traditional tools for cutting through, disruptive advertising, off-shelf display, the promotional offer, the aisle-end promotion, are becoming less effective by the month.
At the other end, AI enables specificity. When consumers search for something that fits a particular need, a low-UPF breakfast cereal, the right food for a three-year-old Labrador, an energy drink that genuinely works for endurance athletes, the AI looks for the product whose factual profile best matches that requirement. Not the best-advertised one. The best one.
That is good news for brands built around genuine product excellence. It is very bad news for brands that occupy the middle ground: not famous enough to be searched by name, not specific enough to win on product-need fit.
The retailer has a new weapon. And a new problem.
Retailers are not passive in this. They control the AI layer on their own platforms. Tesco, Ocado, Sainsbury’s, they all have recommendation engines that steer consumers towards particular products. And unlike shelf placement, which a shopper can physically see and navigate around, an AI recommendation is invisible in its construction.
That gives retailers real power. They can default to own-label where margins are higher. They can prioritise suppliers who pay for prominence. They can steer consumers away from brands negotiating hard on wholesale price.
But there is a tension. Consumers are willing to delegate purchasing decisions to AI precisely because they trust it to be impartial. If it emerges that retailer AI systems are systematically biased towards commercial outcomes, that trust collapses. And it does not just collapse for one retailer. It takes the whole proposition down with it.
What we are seeing is a trust paradox: the more powerful the AI layer becomes, the more fragile the trust that sustains it.
What this means on Monday morning
If you are a Head of Insights or a marketing director at an FMCG company, the first thing to understand is where your category sits. Is it heading towards AI-driven commoditisation, where the fight is about brand fame and value? Or is it a space where consumers are actively searching for need-specific recommendations, where the fight is about product-need fit and machine-readable data?
The answer determines everything: how you develop products, how you describe them, how you track performance, and what you measure.
Because the AI is not reading your advertising. It is reading your ingredients list.
Food for thought? While you’re here, why not check out our other blog The GLP-1 shift: Why this isn’t a diet trend, it’s a permanent market reset.
Download our new report which reveals how GLP-1 adoption is reshaping what consumers want, how they choose, and where brands need to innovate – across food, drink, and beyond.
About the author
- Claire Jennings
- Director, STRAT7 Incite
Claire is a Director in the consumer team, specialising in large scale, quantitative work designed to identify and unlock opportunities for brands as the FMCG landscape evolves at pace. She has extensive experience working for major beverage brands, food manufacturers and within consumer health. Her recent work focuses on how food and drink brands can continue to drive relevance as competitive sets extend beyond traditional boundaries.