Koozie Group (PPAI 114187, Platinum), PPAI 100’s No. 4 supplier, has unveiled the newest addition to its suite of AI tools: Kai Link, which enables users to check on their Koozie Group information without leaving their own AI platform.

There’s no software to build and no new system to learn, according to the Clearwater, Florida-based company. Distributors can simply type a question into the AI assistant they already use, including Claude, ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, and receive a quick, accurate answer drawn from Koozie Group’s live systems.

For example, distributors can type in “Where’s my customer’s order?” or “I need 5,000 red Koozie can coolers for an event on September 1. Are they available immediately?”

Koozie Group says the answers will appear swiftly.

Don’t Miss Any AI Updates: SUBSCRIBE To PPAI Newslink

“[AI] is really driving forward the capabilities of the industry to get better information faster, that’s more accurate than ever,” Phil Gergen, CIO of Koozie Group, told PPAI Media. He emphasizes that this is how the branded merchandise industry is going to function in the future.

“Our customers shouldn’t have to stop what they’re doing, log in to a portal and click through screens to answer a simple question about an order,” Gergen says. “With Kai Link, they just ask. Most distributors are already leaning into AI, but few have the time or in-house expertise to build a custom integration into their own systems.”

[AI] is really driving forward the capabilities of the industry to get better information faster, that’s more accurate than ever.”

Phil Gergen

CIO, Koozie Group

An Industry First?

Koozie Group says Kai Link is the first Model Context Protocol connector in the branded merchandise industry.

  • MCP is an open standard created by Anthropic for connecting AI applications to external systems.


“We built the industry’s first MCP connector so the gap disappears,” Gergen says. “The way distributors and suppliers work together is about to change fundamentally, and we intend to lead that change.”

Kai Link includes seven capabilities: recent order history, orders needing attention, status checks by PO number, complete single-order detail, shipment summaries, full product search with pricing and quantity breaks for quoting and real-time inventory with inbound replenishment dates.

Koozie Group Pierre Montaubin - CEO 2024 (2)
Distributors win business by being the fastest with an accurate answer.”

Pierre Montaubin

CEO, Koozie Group

Kai Link is also a read-only model, Koozie Group says, which means it can look up and report information but can’t place, edit or cancel an order. Authentication uses OAuth 2.1, and customers can rotate or revoke their own credentials at any time.

“Distributors win business by being the fastest with an accurate answer,” says Pierre Montaubin, CEO of Koozie Group. “Kai Link puts our catalog, live inventory and every one of distributors’ orders at their fingertips, inside the same tools where they already write emails and build presentations.”

READ MORE: PPAI Research: AI Use Becoming Ubiquitous Among Branded Merch Firms

Koozie Group customers can sign up now and request beta access at kooziegroup.com. The full release will happen later this summer.

“Getting early access to [Koozie Group’s] MCP and watching the scope of what it exposes grow so quickly is a great example of the kind of forward-thinking collaboration we value,” says Rob Deckert, director of product management at Virginia-based distributor Custom Ink.