Coca-Cola is betting that AI can help it pop. The beverage company has signed a five-year partnership with Microsoft to streamline its workplace operations, manage costs, and improve productivity, it said in a statement on Tuesday. The partnership is valued at $1.1 billion.
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Under the agreement, Coca-Cola will move all of its applications over to Microsoft’s cloud computing platform Azure. Coca-Cola said it is exploring the use of AI-powered digital assistants on Azure’s platform so that it can help employees improve customer experiences and boost efficiency.
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Coca-Cola said its latest AI investment is part of its bid to “reimagine” how it does marketing and meets manufacturing and supply chain demands. Its latest AI cash infusion is also a steep rise from the $250 million it spent in 2020.
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Some of Coca-Cola’s biggest competitors, such as RedBull and Pepsi Co., already use AI to gauge customer engagement.
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Neeraj Tolmare, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president and global chief information officer, said the company’s expanded partnership with Microsoft is “an important next chapter” in its journey “to becoming a digital-first enterprise.”
“Microsoft’s capabilities can help accelerate our adoption of AI to create incremental enterprise value,” Tolmare said.
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