Every morning, 3.9 million people pull into PTT fuel stations across Thailand. They grab coffee, fuel up, and charge their EVs. What they don’t see is the invisible AI machinery working behind the scenes — tracking their preferences, predicting their next move, and personalizing their experience in real time.
PTT Oil and Retail Business (OR) just became more than your typical energy company. While competitors cling to legacy systems and product-first thinking, OR has quietly become Southeast Asia’s most sophisticated experiment in AI-driven customer engagement. The transformation is ambitious and essential for a world where Gen Z expects Netflix-level personalization from their gas station app.
“We’re no longer competing on product alone,” says Pakorn Suriyabhivadh, OR’s senior executive vice president of digital business and solutions. “The future belongs to brands that understand their customers deeply and deliver relevant experiences in real time.”
This philosophy underpins what OR calls its “data-first strategy.” While the name may sound plain, the strategy is really a complete reimagining of how a traditional energy company can compete in the age of Amazon and TikTok. With over 9 million users on its blueplus+ app, OR sits atop a goldmine of behavioral data that most tech companies would envy.
The pipeline strategy
OR’s digital transformation rests on six interconnected pillars, each addressing a different piece of the personalization puzzle. The first pillar, Digital Consumer Landscape, creates what the press release describes as “a 360-degree behavioral data system that enables deep understanding of customer preferences and habits.”
The second pillar, Intelligent Site and Outlet, turns physical locations into data collection engines through “deployment of IoT, beacon technology, and video analytics to optimize real-world customer interactions and experiences.”
Meanwhile, OR’s Digital Channels pillar focuses on “development of the OR app into a seamless online-to-offline experience hub for promotions, loyalty, and service booking.” Users can access personalized content tailored to their generation—whether that’s Gen Z or Gen Alpha.
The remaining pillars include Digital Supply Chain for “integrated operations to streamline logistics and reduce costs,” Cloud Optimization and Enterprise Solutions featuring “cloud-first architecture, AI-powered backend, and modernized infrastructure to boost enterprise agility,” and New Revenue Diversification through “expansion into lifestyle and financial services, including OR’s newly approved virtual banking partnership with AIS and Krung Thai Bank.”
Drilling down on the data
OR doesn’t just talk up transformation but also measures it. The company tracks Net Promoter Score (NPS) across every platform and channel, alongside business impact metrics including “average basket size, purchase frequency, and repeat engagement.” When OR relaunched its blueplus+ app with AI-generated storytelling and personalized brand mascots, the results were immediate: over 3 million video views within three days of launch.
The real innovation is actually organizational. “The hardest part of transformation isn't the tech,” Suriyabhivadh explains. “It’s getting the whole organization to move together.” OR started with a small cross-functional team focused on the app, then scaled across business units through what it calls “cultural change and digital capability-building.”
This approach addresses the elephant in the room for most digital transformations: organizational resistance. While many companies pour millions into AI platforms only to watch them gather digital dust, OR focuses equally on human and technological infrastructure.
Full story Thai Gas Station Giant Strikes Oil With AI Personalization | CDOTrends
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