COS - Reimagining Business Supplies with Generative AI

In mid-2025, COS partnered with Time Under Tension to explore how generative AI could revolutionise Australia’s largest family-owned office supply business.

With thousands of SKUs, nationwide delivery infrastructure, and a longstanding commitment to sustainability, COS is already a leader in the business supplies category. The brief? How to apply generative AI not just to automate, but to innovate.

AI-Powered Productivity at Scale

We began with a custom Generative AI Design Sprint, bringing together cross-functional leaders from marketing, eCommerce, logistics, and procurement. The opening Inform session demonstrated how emerging generative technologies are transforming supply chain visibility, product content management, customer self-service and sustainability reporting.

Using COS-specific workflows and challenges, we then moved into our Design phase. Here, we facilitated ideation sessions tailored around COS’s strategic pillars.

COS’s AI Roadmap

The session wasn’t just theoretical. We rapidly designed generative AI use cases, across all parts of the business. By the end of the sprint, the team had co-created a detailed AI Roadmap with clear, high-impact use cases. Prioritised by business value and implementation complexity.

We are currently working with COS to bring select use cases to life and accelerate AI adoption through the business.

AI that Works Like COS Does

At Time Under Tension, we believe generative AI should adapt to how your business works — not the other way around.

Working with COS proved just that: a business with strong operational rigour and a customer-first ethos, now supercharged by the strategic use of generative AI.

Want to explore your own AI Design Sprint? Contact us here.