AI Concept Creation Agents | Self-Service
Zappi Marketing Agents
The Zappi Marketing Agents are a collection of LLM assistants that have embedded expertise and access to relevant data and chosen inputs to facilitate a wide array of virtual marketing related tasks. Think of this as an “umbrella term” for all of Zappi’s current and future AI agent offerings.
AI Concept Creation Agents
AI Concept Creation Agents are a subset of the Zappi Marketing Agents trained to help you generate new product concepts by leveraging generative AI, as well as:
- Your Zappi concept testing data [Activate It or Activate It Early]
- Your brand’s expertise [accessed through brand guidelines, market research studies, etc]
- Zappi’s expertise leveraging AI for concept generation
Collectively, Concept Creation Agents help you uncover new ideas and generate unique, consumer-centric concepts. So, you have enough test-ready concepts and the potential breakthrough ideas to test, iterative, optimize and keep up with any fast-paced competitive space
AI Concept Creation Agents | Integrate into existing workflow
Access the Zappi Marketing Agents interface directly from the Zappi platform and seamlessly transition test-ready concepts into research, optimize and validate further.
AI Concept Creation Agents are designed to integrate directly into early-stage innovation workflows, reducing the time, effort, and resource dependencies typically required for concept creation. By automating key stages of ideation and refinement, the agents enable teams to generate more test-ready concepts faster, giving your organization greater capacity to explore, test, and launch new ideas efficiently.
Default vs custom agents
All customers with a subscription for AI Concept Creation Agents will have access to default agents. However, depending on your plan you may also have the option to choose customizable agents.
Customizable agents extend functionality and are tailored to your specific business needs, but they require customization and documentation in order to be effective. Depending on your subscription plan, you may choose to have a custom version of a default agent or the following examples:
Default Agents
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Customizable Agents
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Key capabilities and benefits
By eliminating reliance on slow, expensive, and resource-heavy creative processes, brands can ultimately bring better products to market faster and more frequently.
- Automated Ideation and Refinement: Generate and refine concepts through AI-driven brainstorming, iterative development cycles, and validation tasks, significantly reducing the time and effort required to create test-ready concepts.
- Scaled Expertise: Ensure every concept adheres to your brand guidelines, resonates with your target audience, and aligns with category expectations or other relevant inputs provided during implementation, maintaining high relevance and quality. Benefit from Zappi’s years of accumulated experience driving successful AI workshops, built into the experience as your “Facilitator agent.”
- More Volume and Variety of Ideas: Expand the range of generated concepts without additional resource demands, identify more potential breakthrough ideas and bring more winning concepts to market faster.
- Data-Informed Concept Generation: Build new ideas on past learnings by utilizing your existing concept testing dataset from Activate It or Activate It Early to inform and guide concept generation.
AI Concept Creation Agents | FAQs
Can I add new agents after the initial setup?
Based on your plan, you can expand your agent ecosystem with additional agents as your strategy evolves until you hit the maximum allowed within your chosen subscription plan. If you have hit the maximum allowed within your subscription plan, you can purchase ongoing access to any additional custom agents as an add-on or upgrade to a higher subscription plan.
Learn more about our subscription tiers by reaching out to your customer representative.
Can I update or retrain my agents?
Users/Admins are not able to update the core agent prompts on your own. This is something you need to ask Zappi Professional Services to update. However, you can create new hubs and add additional hub-specific instructions to the agents (see the Admin section). With the help of Zappi Professional Services, you can adjust or refine prompting instructions and upload new documents (e.g., brand guidelines, audience personas) to retrain agents like Brand or Category.
These updates help ensure your agents stay aligned with your evolving brand strategy, market needs or other factors that can change over time. If you’d prefer hands-on support, the Zappi Professional Services team can assist with setting up a new custom agent or maintaining and optimizing your existing custom agents.
How do I purchase and get access?
Minimum data asset required
There is a minimum data asset requirement that you need to meet ahead of time to ensure your experience and learnings are relevant and robust. Before you can purchase the subscription add-on, you must have 20 cells of Activate It or Activate It Early testing on your platform within your preferred category. The size of the database must be good enough for relevant and robust experience, output and learnings. If you have concept testing data across subcategories, markets, or innovation spaces that do not align with your needs, it may not be relevant. To add additional clarity, these are concepts launched on your own domain. You can decide on composition based on the intended use case, as they can be your own or competitive. Because of this, we highly recommend seeding your database with relevant concepts for your innovation opportunity.
If you would like to accelerate your data build, we recommend purchasing a custom norm build or data asset build from our Professional Services. We'llhelp you design the composition, run the studies needed and make the norm available on the platform. Keep in mind this will serve you a dual purpose. Not only will this make the experience and output of the agents relevant to their business case, you can also use it for benchmarking purposes as part of your testing.
To find out how to purchase a custom norm build, please reach out to your customer account representative and submit the request form from within the platform.
Choose between Subscription Add-on or AI Concept Lab?
The AI Concept Creation Agents can be accessed in two distinct ways. Depending on your goals, needs and expectations, a Zappi representative can work with you to help determine the right fit and suggest a subscription tier for you. Some basic reminders on the distinct professional services offering.
- Subscription add-on = self-service: AI Concept Creation Agents, with direct access to Self-Service, on platform. The self-serve option follows a subscription-based model. Once you’ve purchased the subscription, the agents will be activated in your account. Please contact your customer account representative to learn more about pricing and plans.
- AI Concept Lab = virtual or in-person: If you are looking for a more hands-on experience, you can also access the agents through our professional services offering, the AI Concept Lab.and for an expert led facilitated experience. Learn more here.
Subscription Add-Ons
In order to gain access to the AI Concept Creation Agents, you need to purchase a Zappi Marketing Agent add-on to your premium or enterprise platform subscription to your organization. The add-on is for 12 months (your platform subscription term) access to the AI Concept Creation Agents with monthly usage allowance included on a use-it-or-loose-it basis.
Volume plans.
There are three different volume plans for the Zappi Marketing Agent add-on:
- Small - for access to up to 3 custom agents with 25M tokens to be used within 50 sessions per month [approximately 50 new concepts per month]*
- Medium - for access to up to 5 custom agents with 50M tokens to be used within 100 sessions per month [approximately 100 new concepts per month]*
- Large - for access to up to 10 custom agents with 100M tokens to be used within 200 sessions per month [approximately 200 new concepts per month]*
*Note, this is just an approximation, assuming you are able to run this many sessions with your token allowance.
Pricing and Packaging FAQs
What if you use your monthly allowance before the end of your monthly cycle?
Don’t worry! Similar to your monthly data allowance on your phone contract, we will let you know if you are close to running out of tokens or sessions and you can purchase a one off monthly usage bolt-on for any overages within that particular month. The usage bolt-on is available on a use-it-or-lose-it basis only within the monthly cycle within which it is purchased and will not roll-over to subsequent months.
What is a session?
A session is the experience of engaging with the Zappi Marketing Agents for the purpose of generating and iterating on a specific type of concept. Iteration can include multiple image generations and as such, concepts.
What is a token?
In general, tokens are units of data processed by AI models to enable data interpretation, generation and reasoning. The number of tokens used per session can vary widely based on the type of session (for example, lots of iteration and prompting will result in higher token usage).
How to I get started?
Guided Implementation
Upon subscribing, you will proceed with our guided implementation process. Throughout this process, you will need to provide a number of key assets and relevant resources to demonstrate your brand expertise.
It's during this time that Zappi customizes your ecosystem of AI Concept Creation Agents to align with your unique goals and business needs during implementation. Each agent is given a clearly defined role and is trained specifically to automate actions, complete tasks, and extract specific insights and scale expertise. The number of agents you get set up during implementation depends on your subscription tier. Read more about our guided implementation and onboarding here.
Getting started as an admin vs regular user
Regular users have unlimited access to concept creation. They can select any of the available concept creation hubs (e.g. a brand/market hub like ‘Doritos USA’) and create new concepts by simply interacting with the agents.
Admin users on top of the regular user rights, admin users also have unlimited access to create new hubs and modify, delete and view details of existing hubs.
Understanding Hubs, your centralized workspaces
Zappi Hubs are centralized workspaces within the AI Concept Creation Agents interface that allow your team to manage and run concept creation sessions in a self-serve environment. Think of them as your team's personal AI workshop—designed to be flexible, collaborative, and fully aligned with your category or brand needs.
Your hubs are initially configured during implementation based on your selected market and category combinations, and customized to your self-service plan. This ensures that each hub reflects your unique business context—shaping agent behavior, available inputs, and the overall user experience. The number of Hubs depends on your specific business needs, normally Hubs are created for category/market combinations or brand/category/market. The number of Hubs you can create and use are unlimited.
What you can do within a Hub
- Generate Concepts: Launch sessions to create, iterate, and evaluate new ideas using your configured agents. Jump to more info on generating new concepts
- Access Agent Ecosystem: See which agents are available in your sessions and toggle on and off default and custom ones.
- Update Agents Assigned: Add new agents or remove them to existing Hubs.
- Add Custom Agent Prompting: Add specific prompting to an agent that is specific for that Hub. Think of it as telling an expert on your category that you want them to focus on one subcategory for this innovation space.
Once your initial hubs are implemented and customized based on your plan, Admins will have access to create and manage unlimited additional hubs on your own, giving you the flexibility to scale and adapt as your needs evolve.
Adding and/or removing Hubs: If you’re an Admin, you have the ability to:
- Create new innovation hubs based on different markets, categories, or project needs
- Add or remove agents within existing hubs to better suit your objectives
- Create unlimited hubs post-implementation self-serve, so you can scale and adapt as needed.
From within the ‘Hubs’ tab, accessed from top right navigation link (for admin accounts):
To create a new hub:
- Click on the New Hub icon in bottom left corner of your screen
- Fill in the hub name and description and click ‘Submit’
- Go to the ‘Agent Roles’ tab and select the agents you want to include. If desired, you can add hub-specific instructions to each of the agents. These instructions will complement the existing agent instructions set up at implementation (you can view these existing instructions but only the Zappi team is able to amend them)
- Click ‘Update’. The hub will instantly become available for use to all the users.
To modify an existing hub:
- Click on the hub you want to modify
- Go to the ‘Properties’ tab to modify hub name or description
- Go to the ‘Agent Roles’ tab to modify your agent selection or add hub-specific instructions to the agents.
- Go to the ‘Map’ tab if you want to see an overview of all the hub agents and data sources
- Click ‘Update’. The updated hub will instantly become available for use to all the users.
To delete an existing hub click on the ‘delete hub’ icon next to the hub name and confirm your choice
To view details of an existing hub click on the hub you want to view and click on ‘Properties’, ‘Agent Roles’ or ‘Map’ tab to view the respective information, as described above.
If you need support managing your hubs, Zappi Professional Services is available to help configure and maintain them for you.
How to I generate new concept?
Basic steps for generating new concepts
Once you have subscribed and have gone through our guided implementation process, you can access the agents directly on the Zappi platform. Go to the side bar, and click on the ‘Marketing Agents’ icon.
Select from the Hub drop down to select a Hub and launch a new session. Or, you may also retrieve previous assets or sessions, by clicking the corresponding links. From the Sessions or Assets tabs, you can sort by archived, as well as your own sessions/assets. This option is best for iterating on a previously generated concept. To start a new ideation process, click either of the "new session' buttons.
To start a conversation with the agents, type into the chat window to enter a message. For a new concept/ideation process, the first message can be your initial concept theme, goals and any other broad context.
The Facilitator Agent will then guide conversation - and concept ideation/creation flow - by activating relevant agents in sequence. As the agents work to pull insights and complete tasks, you will be prompted for any additional areas of detail or clarification, just like you might in a regular conversation with a team of creative partners/marketing experts.
The Facilitator agent will present you with concepts in written format for review and approval before an image is generated. You have the option of adding in points of clarity and additional direction or feedback at any point, as you're communicating with the Facilitator Agent in the chat.
You will be able to see as each of the agents are engaged. Click the arrow next to each agent box -while engaging or when it's complete - to view the facilitator prompts and their individual outputs. When engaging, the box will be blue, and then it turns green when it's complete.
Once you’re happy with the final generated concept, you can copy or download the concept for testing, sharing, or further iteration.
As referenced above, you can always go back later to this session or asset to continue to iterate. Or, revert back to a previous iteration by selecting that asset as the starting point.
Best Practice for Concept Creation:
Refine Through Iteration: The first concept is just a starting point. Use the platform to push the idea further—each round of input helps the agents better understand your goals and produce stronger results.
Be Clear and Direct: Start with focused, simple prompts. If the output isn’t aligning with your expectations, don’t hesitate to guide the Facilitator Agent—tell it exactly what you'd like to adjust or improve.
Use Your Data: The more aligned your input documents are to your brand and consumers, the better the concepts will be.
Troubleshooting Issues
Quick Fixes Guide
Please note: This solution is no longer in beta. However, due to the nature and current state of generative AI, you may experience minor delays or occasional unexpected behavior.
| Issue | Try This |
| Page won’t load | Refresh or clear browser cache |
| Agent hangs | Use in-app feedback to report it, then retry |
| Nothing is published | Tell the facilitator to publish the concept or image if it believes it has already done so |
| Visuals not generating | Tell the facilitator to go to the visual design agent, or to publish the image |
| Unexpected concept tone | Check if your Brand Agent has recent examples uploaded, or update prompting |
Please refer to the guide above for quick fixes. For larger issues, please contact our Support team or your customer account representative to receive further assistance.
Troubleshooting FAQs
What if an agent gets stuck or takes too long to respond?
Try refreshing the page. The Facilitator Agent is designed to occasionally stop and ask you questions and will prompt you if action is required. You can always tell the facilitator to ‘Continue’ if you have nothing to add. If issues persist, contact support through the in-platform chat.
Can I request specific changes to my concept while keeping everything else the same?
Generative AI models often struggle to make highly specific edits while keeping everything else the same because they regenerate content from scratch each time, rather than truly editing. They lack a strong sense of structure or memory, so when asked to tweak just one part - like a word or image element - they may unintentionally alter surrounding details as well. This happens because the models operate probabilistically, meaning small input changes can lead to bigger, unpredictable shifts. While new technology is developing to improve this, perfect control is still a work in progress.
Why is the spelling on my generated concept incorrect?
AI image generators don't actually "understand" text - they treat words as visual patterns rather than meaningful language. So when they try to include text in an image, like a slogan or label, they’re mimicking how text looks, not how it's spelled. This can lead to misspellings or jumbled letters. While this is a known limitation, the overall visual concept, style, and layout can still serve as a powerful source of inspiration. So even if the text isn’t perfect, the generated image can still be a valuable starting point for your ideas.
General FAQs
How do you ensure the created concepts are truly unique?
We’re aware there is scepticism about the ability of AI to generate truly distinctive concepts. The Zappi AI Concept creation agents not only leverage LLMs but also Zappi data and your brand-specific inputs which maximizes the chances that the generated concepts are highly distinctive. In fact we’ve seen 90% of the concepts generated by our AI Concept Creation Agents are scoring above the norm on distinctiveness.
Jump to pricing and packaging FAQs
Privacy and Security
How do you ensure data privacy?
We are ISO 27001 certified and strictly adhere to ISO 42001:2023 and ISO/IEC 27001 standards across our AI and data infrastructure. Comprehensive data security policies of multiple AI models and platforms are followed and information is safeguarded at all times. Zappi adheres to its data, privacy and security standards with respect to its use and deployment of AI models within the Marketing Agents, as well as the processing of any data input into them.
The Marketing Agents, including AI Concept Creation Agents, do not train on your business data, you own and control your inputs at all times. Zappi does not use any customer-provided data—such as survey inputs—nor does it use research results, metadata, or respondent data to train foundational AI models. Customer data is used solely for the delivery of services explicitly requested by the customer and remains isolated from any general-purpose or shared AI training processes.
Each customer’s data is treated as confidential and processed in accordance with contractual terms and applicable data protection laws. Data used for AI-powered features within the Zappi platform is processed securely and only within the context of that customer's account and services.
Please see the Zappi Trust Portal as well as Zappi’s Privacy Policy for more information about Zappi’s security practices and policies.