Microsoft and Coca-Cola partner to accelerate Gen AI initiatives

Microsoft and The Coca-Cola Company have entered a five-year strategic partnership that aims to align Coca-Cola’s core technology strategy systemwide and enable the adoption of new technology while fostering innovation and productivity globally.

As part of the partnership, Coca-Cola has made a US$1.1 billion commitment to Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities. Microsoft Cloud will also be the beverage company’s global preferred and strategic cloud and AI platform.

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Through the partnership, the companies will jointly experiment with technology such as the Azure OpenAI service to develop innovative generative AI use cases across various business functions. This includes testing how Copilot for Microsoft 365 could help improve workplace productivity.

“Through our long-term partnership, we have made significant progress to accelerate system-wide AI transformation across The Coca-Cola Company and its network of independent bottlers worldwide,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president and chief commercial officer at Microsoft.

Coca-Cola has been working with generative AI and has leveraged Azure OpenAI Service to reimagine its marketing, manufacturing and supply chain to name a few.

The company is currently exploring the use of generative AI-powered digital assistants on Azure OpenAI Service to help employees improve customer experiences, streamline operations, foster innovation, gain a competitive advantage, boost efficiency and uncover new growth opportunities.

“This new agreement builds on the success of Coca-Cola’s partnership strategy with Microsoft, showing our commitment to ongoing digital transformation,” said John Murphy, president and chief financial officer of The Coca-Cola Company.

“Our partnership with Microsoft has grown exponentially, from the $250 million agreement we initially announced in 2020 to $1.1 billion today,” he explained.

True enough, Coca-Cola’s latest campaigns have seen the adoption of AI such as creating a brand-new typography, which can “reveal” hidden letters inside every bottle, can and glass of the beverage for its Zero Sugar line.

Under the initiative, an object detection algorithm was trained to find lettered shapes across more than 100,000 photos of Coke Zero Sugar’s intrinsics—from liquid condensation to clustered bubbles to airborne fizz.

The resulting typography has been used to create words and messages, giving the product the chance to “speak for itself” for the very first time and inviting fans to experience the product both physically and digitally.

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