Who leads AI at Coca-Cola?

AI at Coca-Cola is led by Sedef Salingan Sahin (Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer); Pratik Thakar (Global Vice President and Head of Generative AI); Derek Benz (Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin, reporting to the CEO since Mar 2026.

What AI platform does Coca-Cola use?

Coca-Cola runs most of its applications and AI on Microsoft Azure under a five-year, $1.1 billion cloud and generative AI commitment made in Apr 2024, with the rest on AWS and Google Cloud (Jul 2025), and builds tools on top with partners: Fizzion with Adobe, ShopX with Nvidia and WPP, and its own Suggested Order algorithm for retail outlets.

Which AI models does Coca-Cola use?

Coca-Cola works most closely with Microsoft and OpenAI, using OpenAI models through Azure OpenAI Service, and also uses Google, Meta and Anthropic models (Jul 2025), Adobe Firefly and video tools from AI studios; CIO Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola tests almost every large language model, open-source or not.

How many Coca-Cola employees use AI?

Coca-Cola has not disclosed how many of its 65,900 employees use AI; Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal company data, Copilot for Microsoft 365 has been under test since Apr 2024, and every employee receives responsible AI training (May 2025).

How far has AI spread at Coca-Cola?

Coca-Cola sits at Piloting: AI runs in production in a handful of areas, including AI-made holiday advertising since 2024, Suggested Order for retail outlets and a pack, price and channel optimization tool in eight markets, out of about 1,000 pilots run by May 2025; employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal data (Oct 2025), and an AI Risk Governance Council and responsible AI guidelines are in place. Coca-Cola falls short of Scaling because it has disclosed no company-wide AI platform open to most employees and no count of users, its AI agents were still in pilot in Jul 2025, and its Chief Digital Officer only took charge of digital, data and AI on Mar 31, 2026.

Verified Nov 1, 2026

Coca-Cola

Piloting

Beverages
65,900 employees
$1.1B Microsoft cloud and AI deal
~1,000 AI pilots (2025)
Chief Digital Officer since Mar 2026

The Coca-Cola Company runs most of its AI on Microsoft Azure under a $1.1 billion cloud and generative AI commitment made in Apr 2024, and uses AI chiefly in marketing and in the ordering tools its bottlers give retailers. Coca-Cola makes holiday films and campaign content with generative AI, builds content tools with Adobe, Nvidia and WPP, and reports a 4-6% sales uplift where outlets use its AI Suggested Order. Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin has led digital, data and AI since Mar 2026.

coca-colacompany.com

Their approach to AI

The platform: Coca-Cola runs most of its applications and AI on Microsoft Azure under a five-year, $1.1 billion cloud and generative AI commitment made in Apr 2024, with the rest on AWS and Google Cloud (Jul 2025), and builds tools on top with partners: Fizzion with Adobe, ShopX with Nvidia and WPP, and its own Suggested Order algorithm for retail outlets.
The models: Coca-Cola works most closely with Microsoft and OpenAI, using OpenAI models through Azure OpenAI Service, and also uses Google, Meta and Anthropic models (Jul 2025), Adobe Firefly and video tools from AI studios; CIO Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola tests almost every large language model, open-source or not.
The reach: Coca-Cola has not disclosed how many of its 65,900 employees use AI; Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal company data, Copilot for Microsoft 365 has been under test since Apr 2024, and every employee receives responsible AI training (May 2025).
The catch: Coca-Cola has published a return for one AI use case, a 4-6% sales uplift with Suggested Order (Feb 2026); executives call AI-made advertising quicker and cheaper but have given no figure, and Coca-Cola reports no firm-level AI return.

Snapshot

Employees: ~65,900; Dec 31, 2025, about 8,900 in the U.S.; more than 700,000 with bottling partners
Technology budget: ~$2.5B digital spend (2025); Includes paid digital media; the system spends about $2B a year on digitization (May 2025)
AI/ML headcount: Not disclosed; Two of close to 2,000 marketing staff had AI in their job titles (Oct 2025)
Who owns AI: Sedef Salingan Sahin, CDO; EVP and Chief Digital Officer since Mar 31, 2026, reporting to CEO Henrique Braun
Platform: Microsoft Azure; $1.1B commitment (Apr 2024); about 80% of infrastructure on Azure, the rest on AWS and Google Cloud (Jul 2025)
Models: OpenAI, Google, Meta, Anthropic, Adobe Firefly; Almost every large language model tested, open-source or not (May 2025)
Reach: Not disclosed; Employees use a ChatGPT tool on internal data (Oct 2025); Copilot under test from Apr 2024
Use cases: ~1,000 pilots (2025); In production: Suggested Order, AI-made ads, pack and price tool in 8 markets

Key findings

Coca-Cola made a five-year, $1.1 billion commitment to Microsoft's cloud and generative AI in Apr 2024, up from a $250 million agreement in 2020; about 80% of Coca-Cola's infrastructure ran on Azure in Jul 2025, with the rest on AWS and Google Cloud, after it retired its own data centers about 2019.
Coca-Cola reported a 4-6% sales uplift where outlets use Suggested Order, its AI recommendation of the next best product to stock, at CAGNY in Feb 2026, the only AI use case with a published return.
Coca-Cola made its 2024 and 2025 holiday films with generative AI; James Quincey said in Feb 2025 that the 2024 ad was quicker and cheaper to make, and Henrique Braun said in Sep 2026 that campaigns now take a fraction of the cost and time, without giving figures.
Coca-Cola created a Chief Digital Officer role reporting to the CEO, filled on Mar 31, 2026 by Sedef Salingan Sahin, to join up digital, data and AI work whose strategy had sat under President and CFO John Murphy; CIO Neeraj Tolmare expected to leave his post in Jun 2026, and Coca-Cola has named no successor.
CIO Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola had run about 1,000 AI pilots and had moved from asking what AI can do to what it should do, with an executive Digital Council reviewing digital investment requests each quarter; Coca-Cola spent about $2.5 billion on digital in 2025.

Where Coca-Cola sits

Stage: Piloting
Coca-Cola sits at Piloting: AI runs in production in a handful of areas, including AI-made holiday advertising since 2024, Suggested Order for retail outlets and a pack, price and channel optimization tool in eight markets, out of about 1,000 pilots run by May 2025; employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal data (Oct 2025), and an AI Risk Governance Council and responsible AI guidelines are in place. Coca-Cola falls short of Scaling because it has disclosed no company-wide AI platform open to most employees and no count of users, its AI agents were still in pilot in Jul 2025, and its Chief Digital Officer only took charge of digital, data and AI on Mar 31, 2026.
How the stages are defined
Ownership: Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin, reporting to the CEO since Mar 2026
Platform: Hybrid: Microsoft Azure and Azure OpenAI; tools built with Adobe, Nvidia and WPP
Models: OpenAI through Azure, plus Google, Meta and Anthropic models, Adobe Firefly and Stable Diffusion
Hosting: About 80% on Microsoft Azure, the rest on AWS and Google Cloud (Jul 2025); own data centers retired about 2019; Fizzion on Adobe Firefly services
Reach: Not disclosed; employees use a ChatGPT tool on internal data (Oct 2025)

How they deploy

From what AI can do to what it should do

Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola began its AI work with about 1,000 pilots across the business and, about two years earlier, started tying each experiment to a specific business outcome; Fortune reported in Jul 2025 that Tolmare approved AI pilots only when leaders could see a path to revenue growth or large efficiency gains in production. Coca-Cola created a Digital Council of senior executives in Jan 2023, chaired by John Murphy (Fortune, Oct 2025), that reviews digital investment requests every quarter to avoid duplicate projects and aims to trace, for example, how many transactions a marketing dollar creates. Tolmare called the current phase a move from modernization to activation: building AI solutions on cloud and data foundations laid over the previous few years.

Amplify the core business

Henrique Braun told investors in Feb and Sep 2026 that digital at Coca-Cola means doing better what the company already does best, because the return on investment is bigger on existing strengths, and that data, digital and AI added on top become a superpower. Braun splits the agenda into consumers, customers and the enterprise. John Murphy said in Jun 2026 that AI is the latest layer of revenue growth management, a growth enabler more than a cost reducer.

Common platforms, built with the bottlers

Coca-Cola standardized on a few global platforms, Microsoft, SAP, Adobe and Salesforce, and steers its independent bottlers toward the same ones through a board of the top 20 bottler CIOs, which Neeraj Tolmare chaired as CIO, he said in May 2025. Coca-Cola buys the $1.1 billion Azure commitment and SAP licenses for the whole system, while bottlers co-develop price optimization, trade promotion and revenue growth management tools with the company, which then offers them across the system.

Generative AI in marketing first

Coca-Cola's generative AI work started in marketing in 2022, when Pratik Thakar's creative team used Stable Diffusion for the Masterpiece campaign, and grew through an OpenAI partnership announced in Feb 2023. Thakar said in Dec 2025 that Coca-Cola judges AI campaigns on speed to market, hyper-localization, reputation and first-party data collection, not on savings of a few hundred thousand dollars, and works with AI startups for early access and with large technology companies for scale.

A Chief Digital Officer to join it up

Coca-Cola created a Chief Digital Officer role in Jan 2026 to unify digital, data and operational excellence, and Sedef Salingan Sahin took it on Mar 31, 2026. Henrique Braun said Sahin would spend her first months assessing how to organize the teams responsible for digital, and described the role in Sep 2026 as orchestrating digital work across operating units, functions and bottlers instead of centralizing it.

Deployment model: Coca-Cola runs AI as a network of teams instead of one central lab. Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin, reporting to CEO Henrique Braun, has since Mar 31, 2026 connected the digital work of operating units, functions and bottlers, and Braun added a CEO-level system digital council with the bottlers by Sep 2026. Generative AI for marketing sits with Pratik Thakar in the Marketing Transformation Office, working with outside studios and agencies; ordering, revenue growth management and supply chain tools are co-developed with bottlers and offered to the whole system; and the Global Digital Network covers data, AI, cloud, cybersecurity and enterprise technology.
Model providers: Coca-Cola started with Stable Diffusion for the Masterpiece campaign in Aug 2022 and announced a partnership with OpenAI through Bain & Company's services alliance in Feb 2023, building Create Real Magic on GPT-4 and DALL-E. Coca-Cola named Microsoft its globally preferred cloud and AI platform in Apr 2024, when it had worked with generative AI for nearly a year, had used Azure OpenAI Service in marketing, manufacturing and supply chain, and was testing Copilot for Microsoft 365. Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola deliberately uses almost every large language model available, open-source or not, and has a dedicated team to compare them. Fortune reported in Jul 2025 that Coca-Cola works most closely with Microsoft and OpenAI, also uses Google, Meta and Anthropic, and was weighing agent offerings from Microsoft, SAP and Adobe while building its own agents on Coca-Cola data, all still in pilot. Pratik Thakar said in Dec 2025 that the tools behind each holiday campaign change as model rankings shift weekly, and that Coca-Cola asks AI startups for early access to alpha and beta models. Fizzion uses Adobe Firefly, and the 2024 AI Santa used a custom Leonardo.ai model alongside OpenAI and Microsoft technology.
Data and infrastructure: Coca-Cola retired its own data centers about 2019 and said in Apr 2024 that it had migrated all of its applications to Microsoft Azure, with most major independent bottlers following; Fortune reported in Jul 2025 that about 80% of Coca-Cola's footprint was on Azure and the rest on Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud. Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola cut its applications from more than 1,800 to about 700, standardized data so the company and its bottlers exchange information in the same format, and moved its ERP in a greenfield migration to SAP S/4HANA in the cloud, shared with bottlers to pass demand signals. Coca-Cola reported about 5 billion connected identities across its own and partners' data (Feb 2026) and more than 25 million first-party data points collected during the FIFA World Cup 2026 (Jul 2026).

Platforms and internal tools

Create Real MagicMar 2023
Create Real Magic is Coca-Cola's consumer generative AI platform, built by OpenAI and Bain & Company on GPT-4 and DALL-E so people could make artwork from Coca-Cola archive assets; creators made more than 120,000 pieces in Mar 2023. Coca-Cola reused it for AI holiday cards in more than 40 countries in 2023 and, in 2024, for a real-time conversation with a digital Santa that produced a shareable snow globe, built with Accenture, Microsoft, Leonardo.ai, Mimic and OpenAI. Coca-Cola's Dec 2024 release said the Santa chat ran in more than 45 languages; Pratik Thakar later cited 26.
Users
30 million registrations for the 2024 Santa experience
Models
OpenAI GPT-4 and DALL-E; a custom Leonardo.ai model (2024)
Source
Suggested OrderTested by May 2025
Suggested Order is Coca-Cola's homegrown algorithm that predicts the next best product for an outlet's cooler from historical sales, weather and location data and sends the recommendation to the outlet owner, for example by WhatsApp, with AI-generated promotions targeted to single outlets. Coca-Cola tested it across about 1,000 outlets with four bottlers in three countries before Neeraj Tolmare described it in May 2025, and Tolmare told Fortune in Oct 2025 that it was being scaled across almost all bottling partners. In India, Coke Buddy, a platform connecting the bottler to its customers, uses AI and agentic AI to pick the next best product (Feb 2026).
Source
FizzionMay 2025 (pilot)
Fizzion is a design intelligence system Coca-Cola co-developed with Adobe that learns from designers working in Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop and encodes brand rules into a machine-readable StyleID, so teams and agencies can generate localized campaign variations; Coca-Cola said it lets creative teams produce content up to 10 times faster.
Models
Adobe Firefly
Source
ShopXBy May 2025 (pilot)
ShopX is an internal content platform Coca-Cola developed with Nvidia and WPP that turned 20 AI-generated assets into 10,000 variations for different brands, languages and markets in a controlled pilot; Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that the pilot found roughly 20% efficiencies and three times faster time to market, and that the next step is to scale it globally. Fortune reported the 20% in Jul 2025 as a lift in consumer engagement instead.
Source
Pack, price and channel optimization tool2024 (pilot in Mexico)
Coca-Cola piloted an AI-based pack, price and channel optimization tool for revenue growth management in Mexico in 2024 and had scaled it to eight markets across four operating units by Jul 2025, saying it improves offerings and speed to market.
Source
Fuelight360In development since about 2024
Fuelight360 is a capability Coca-Cola is building with its bottling partners to optimize spend end to end across media, trade, point-of-sale materials and coolers; John Murphy said in Feb 2026 that it is being built partly through Coca-Cola's AI work, and called it a medium to longer-term capability in Jun 2026. CFO Dive reported from a May 2026 Gartner session with Coca-Cola's global resource allocation lead, Shelley Kench, that teams use AI and scenario modeling in Fuelight360 to compare marketing and commercial investments in real time, work Bain & Company supported.
Source
Azure OpenAI Service on Microsoft AzureBy Apr 2024
Microsoft Azure is Coca-Cola's preferred cloud and AI platform, and Coca-Cola said in Apr 2024 that it had used Azure OpenAI Service across marketing, manufacturing and supply chain and was exploring generative AI digital assistants for employees on it, alongside a test of Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Models
OpenAI models through Azure OpenAI Service
Source
ChatGPT tool for internal searchBy Oct 2025
Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that Coca-Cola employees have embraced a ChatGPT tool that runs search queries on internal company data; Coca-Cola has not named the tool or said how many employees use it.
Source

Vendors and partners

Microsoft2020
Preferred cloud and AI platform; Azure OpenAI Service; Copilot for Microsoft 365 under test · Coca-Cola signed a $250 million agreement with Microsoft in 2020 and a five-year, $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI in Apr 2024; bottlers draw on the system-wide Azure commitment.
OpenAIFeb 2023
Models behind Create Real Magic (GPT-4, DALL-E) and the 2024 AI Santa · Pratik Thakar said Coca-Cola was the first non-tech company to announce a partnership with OpenAI, in Feb 2023.
Bain & CompanyFeb 2023
Built Create Real Magic with OpenAI; helped develop the 2023 holiday campaign; supported the Fuelight360 resource allocation work · Coca-Cola was the first company to engage with the services alliance Bain & Company formed with OpenAI.
Google, Meta and AnthropicBy Jul 2025
AI model providers Coca-Cola uses alongside OpenAI
Amazon Web Services and Google CloudBy Jul 2025
Clouds hosting the roughly 20% of Coca-Cola's infrastructure not on Azure
AdobeFizzion from May 2025
Marketing platform for the Coca-Cola system; co-developer of Fizzion on Adobe Firefly
WPP (Open X)2021
Global creative partner and media partner outside North America, Japan and South Korea; co-developer of ShopX · Coca-Cola kept WPP Open X after a global review in Oct 2026, citing its Open Intelligence data solution, and is moving North American media to Omnicom in phases from Dec 2026.
NvidiaBy May 2025
Co-developer of the ShopX content platform
Secret Level, Silverside AI and The Wild Card2024
AI studios that made the AI versions of the 'Holidays Are Coming' film · All three studios worked on the 2024 films; Secret Level and Silverside AI made the 2025 versions.
Accenture, Leonardo.ai and Mimic2024
Built the 2024 AI Santa experience with Microsoft and OpenAI
SAP and Salesforce
ERP and CRM platforms standardized across the company and most large bottlers · Coca-Cola buys SAP licenses on behalf of the whole system (May 2025) and was weighing SAP's agent offerings in Jul 2025.
MIT Generative AI Impact ConsortiumSep 2025
Founding member; the Save the Orange project on citrus greening · Coca-Cola is the consortium's only consumer goods member, alongside OpenAI, Analog Devices, Tata Group, SK Telecom and TWG Global.

Leadership

AI, data and platform leaders

Sedef Salingan Sahin

Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer

Sedef Salingan Sahin became Coca-Cola's first Chief Digital Officer on Mar 31, 2026, reporting to Henrique Braun, with a remit to evolve the core business through technology, data and AI. Sahin joined Coca-Cola in 2003 after McKinsey and Procter & Gamble, and was president of the Eurasia and Middle East operating unit from Jan 2023 and, before that, of the nutrition, juice, dairy and plant category.

Pratik Thakar

Global Vice President and Head of Generative AI

Pratik Thakar became Coca-Cola's Global Head of Generative AI in the Marketing Transformation Office in Jun 2023, after serving as global head of creative strategy and integrated content for the Coca-Cola trademark. Thakar led the AI work behind Masterpiece, Create Real Magic and the AI-made holiday films, and said in Dec 2025 that he sits on the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium's board as a founding member.

Derek Benz

Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer

Derek Benz joined Coca-Cola in Jan 2020 from Ford, where he was CISO, after security roles at Honeywell and BP. Coca-Cola's 2025 Form 10-K says Benz reports to the chief information officer, chairs the Cybersecurity Oversight Council and reports to the board's Audit Committee alongside the CIO.

Rapha Abreu

Global Vice President of Design

Rapha Abreu leads design at Coca-Cola and spoke for Fizzion, the AI design system built with Adobe, when Coca-Cola unveiled it in May 2025. Abreu also spoke for the global visual identity Coca-Cola launched in Jul 2026 alongside what it called tech-powered Design Intelligence tools for its design teams and agencies.

Executives

Henrique Braun

Chief Executive Officer

Henrique Braun became CEO of Coca-Cola on Mar 31, 2026 after serving as chief operating officer from Jan 2025, and joined the company in 1996; he ran the Latin America operating unit from 2020 to 2022 and the Brazil business unit from 2016 to 2020. Braun calls digital the company's next superpower, created the Chief Digital Officer role reporting to him and, by Sep 2026, a CEO-level digital council with the bottlers.

James Quincey

Executive Chairman

James Quincey was CEO of Coca-Cola from May 2017 to Mar 31, 2026 and has chaired the board since Apr 2019. Coca-Cola's 2026 proxy statement says Quincey oversaw the deployment of generative AI in how products are developed and marketed, and he said in Dec 2025 that the AI-made Christmas ad was quicker, cheaper and more customizable.

John Murphy

President and Chief Financial Officer

John Murphy joined Coca-Cola in 1988, became CFO in 2019 and president in 2022, and oversaw the company's digital strategy until it moved to the Chief Digital Officer on Mar 31, 2026; Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that Murphy chaired the executive Digital Council created in Jan 2023. Murphy spoke for the $1.1 billion Microsoft commitment in Apr 2024 and said in Jun 2026 that he sees AI more as a growth enabler than a cost reducer.

Manolo Arroyo

Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Customer Commercial Officer

Manolo Arroyo was Global Chief Marketing Officer from 2020 and added customer and commercial leadership on Mar 31, 2026; his remit covers creative, media, design and the marketing and commercial data, technology and capabilities teams. Arroyo led the Oct 2026 agency review that kept WPP Open X and named Omnicom for North American media.

AI org map

Chief Digital Officer reporting to the CEO, connecting digital teams in functions, operating units and bottlers; generative AI inside marketing

Coca-Cola announced a new Chief Digital Officer in Jan 2026, reporting to the CEO, to unify digital, data and operational excellence across the company, and Sedef Salingan Sahin took the role on Mar 31, 2026, the day Henrique Braun became CEO. Digital strategy moved to Sahin from President and CFO John Murphy, and customer and commercial leadership moved from Murphy to Manolo Arroyo, whose marketing organization includes Pratik Thakar's generative AI work and the global design team. Coca-Cola's CISO, Derek Benz, reported to the chief information officer according to the 2025 Form 10-K; Neeraj Tolmare, CIO since Sep 2022, expected to leave that post in Jun 2026, and Coca-Cola has not named a successor.

Coca-Cola has not disclosed how many people work on AI. Coca-Cola's technology staff sit in the Global Digital Network, which its careers site describes as spanning product management, data engineering, analytics and AI, platform and cloud engineering, cybersecurity and enterprise technology; Neeraj Tolmare described a dedicated internal team that evaluates large language models (May 2025), and generative AI for marketing sits with Pratik Thakar in the Marketing Transformation Office. Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that only two of Coca-Cola's close to 2,000 marketing employees had AI in their job titles, because every employee is expected to use AI. Much of the ordering and supply chain AI is built with the independent bottlers, which together with Coca-Cola employ more than 700,000 people.

Reporting lines

Chief Executive Officer
Henrique Braun
- Chief Digital Officer
  Sedef Salingan Sahin
  Digital, data and AI across the enterprise since Mar 31, 2026
- President and CFO
  John Murphy
  Strategy, finance and Enterprise Services; held digital strategy until Mar 31, 2026
- Marketing and Customer Commercial
  Manolo Arroyo
  Creative, media, design, and marketing and commercial data, technology and capabilities
  - Generative AI, Marketing Transformation Office
    Pratik Thakar
    Placed in the Marketing Transformation Office in Jun 2023; direct reporting line not published
  - Global Design
    Rapha Abreu
Chief Information Officer
Digital, data, cyber and IT (May 2025). Neeraj Tolmare held the role from Sep 2022 and expected to leave in Jun 2026; no successor or reporting line published
- Information Security
  Derek Benz, CISO

Coca-Cola does not publish an org chart. Company documents state only that the Chief Digital Officer reports to the CEO (Jan 2026) and that the CISO reports to the chief information officer (2025 Form 10-K); the lines from the President and CFO and from the Chief Marketing and Customer Commercial Officer to the CEO follow the executive leadership list. Coca-Cola's leadership pages no longer list a chief information officer, and Coca-Cola has not said whether the CIO role now reports to the Chief Digital Officer.

Named people

Executive sponsors

Henrique Braun
Chief Executive Officer
James Quincey
Executive Chairman
John Murphy
President and Chief Financial Officer · Oversaw digital strategy until Mar 31, 2026

Digital, data and technology

The Global Digital Network covers data, AI, cloud, cybersecurity and enterprise technology; headcount not disclosed. Coca-Cola has named no chief information officer since Neeraj Tolmare's expected departure in Jun 2026.

Sedef Salingan Sahin
EVP and Chief Digital Officer
Derek Benz
SVP and Chief Information Security Officer · Reports to the CIO (2025 Form 10-K)
Kevin Hague
Technology executive; described by Sociable as SVP of Emerging Technologies · Presented Coca-Cola's AI agent hierarchy at NTT's Upgrade 2026 conference (Apr 2026)
Sachin Vaya
Vice President, Data, North America · Joined from Nike, where he led North America data and AI (CDO Magazine, Jul 2026)

Marketing and generative AI

Manolo Arroyo
EVP, Chief Marketing and Customer Commercial Officer
Pratik Thakar
Global VP and Head of Generative AI
Islam ElDessouky
Global VP, Creative Strategy and Content · Title as of Nov 2025, when he spoke for the holiday campaign and its AI-made films

Design intelligence

Rapha Abreu
Global VP of Design
Dominik Heinrich
Senior Director, Global Design Intelligence and Tech · Title as of May 2025, when he worked on Fizzion with Adobe

Use cases

Coca-Cola had run about 1,000 AI pilots by May 2025, and the AI it describes in production centers on marketing content, ordering tools for retail outlets and revenue growth management. Coca-Cola has published a business return for one use case, a 4-6% sales uplift with Suggested Order (Feb 2026). Executives say AI-made advertising is quicker and cheaper but have given no figure, Coca-Cola reports no firm-level return from AI, and John Murphy said in Jun 2026 that he sees AI more as a growth enabler than a cost reducer.

Use case	Area	Status	ROI
Suggested Order Coca-Cola's homegrown algorithm predicts the next best product for each outlet's cooler from sales history, weather and location and sends it to outlet owners, for example by WhatsApp; Neeraj Tolmare told Fortune in Oct 2025 that it was being scaled across almost all bottling partners, and in India the Coke Buddy platform uses agentic AI to pick the next best product.	Customers and bottlers	In production	4-6% sales uplift at direct customer outlets using Suggested Order, internal estimates (Feb 2026)Source
Pack, price and channel optimization An AI-based tool recommends pack, price and channel combinations; Coca-Cola piloted it in Mexico in 2024 and ran it in eight markets across four operating units by Jul 2025.	Revenue growth management	In production
Fuelight360 spend allocation Fuelight360 pools media, trade, point-of-sale and cooler spend with bottlers to decide where each dollar earns most, built partly through Coca-Cola's AI work; Bain & Company, which supported it, said in May 2026 that the decision cycle fell from two weeks to one hour.	Revenue growth management	Pilot
Connected coolers Cameras in coolers at large outlets photograph shelves and upload the images to the cloud, so Coca-Cola can see inventory and which products sell at what time and predict how to stock them.	Customers and bottlers	In production
AI-made holiday films and campaign content Coca-Cola remade its 1995 'Holidays Are Coming' film with generative AI in 2024 and 2025, in versions localized by city and region, and Henrique Braun said in Sep 2026 that Coca-Cola uses more and more AI in campaign creative, most recently Fanta Halloween.	Marketing	In production
Create Real Magic consumer experiences Coca-Cola's generative AI platform let consumers make artwork from archive assets in 2023 and talk in real time to an AI version of its classic 1931 Santa in 2024, collecting first-party data from those who registered.	Marketing	In production
Fizzion design intelligence Fizzion, built with Adobe on Firefly, encodes brand rules into StyleIDs so teams and agencies can generate on-brand, localized versions of campaign assets; Coca-Cola described it as in pilot in May 2025.	Marketing	Pilot
ShopX content variations ShopX, built with Nvidia and WPP, generated 10,000 variations of 20 AI-made assets across brands, languages and markets in a controlled pilot.	Marketing	Pilot
AI-drafted creative briefs Coca-Cola marketers write campaign briefs from prompts instead of working through several agencies, and Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that their quality now matches a top agency's.	Marketing	In production
Consumer emotion and taste mapping Coca-Cola's R&D teams used AI to collect more than 26,000 consented facial video recordings from focus groups to read how consumers feel, and a sensory mapping tool that covered about 1,200 products by 2023 guides product development; Neeraj Tolmare called R&D's use of AI early stage in May 2025.	Research and development	In production
AI-assisted product innovation Coca-Cola co-created the limited-edition Y3000 flavor and design with AI in Sep 2023, and James Quincey said in Dec 2025 that AI is being used to read consumer trends and lift the success rate of new products.	Research and development	In production
Plant digital twins Coca-Cola and several of its bottlers use AI-powered digital twins to simulate plant operations, warehousing and yard management, which Neeraj Tolmare said helped plants keep running remotely during the pandemic.	Supply chain	In production
Save the Orange Coca-Cola leads a project in the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium with Fundecitrus and Invaio Sciences that applies generative AI to citrus greening, and Pratik Thakar said three solutions were being piloted in Dec 2025.	Agriculture	Pilot
Employee AI assistants Coca-Cola employees use a ChatGPT tool that runs search queries on internal company data, Fortune reported in Oct 2025; Coca-Cola began testing Copilot for Microsoft 365 and generative AI assistants on Azure OpenAI Service in Apr 2024 and has not said how many employees use any of them.	Enterprise	In production
AI agents on company data Coca-Cola was building its own AI agents trained on its data and weighing agent offerings from Microsoft, SAP and Adobe, all still in pilot in Jul 2025; Kevin Hague described in Apr 2026, according to Sociable, a hierarchy in which agents on single databases feed agents that summarize for managers.	Enterprise	Pilot

Adoption

Coca-Cola has not published how many employees use AI tools. Coca-Cola's AI spread first through marketing, from the Masterpiece and Create Real Magic campaigns in Mar 2023 to AI-made holiday films in 2024 and 2025 and generative AI in campaigns such as Fanta Halloween in 2026, and through the bottling system's digital ordering, where about two-thirds of the 33 million outlets Coca-Cola serves were on digital platforms by 2026 and Suggested Order recommends what to stock. Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola had run about 1,000 AI pilots and that every employee receives responsible AI training. Inside the company, Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal data and that leaders expect everyone to use AI in daily work; Coca-Cola began testing Copilot for Microsoft 365 in Apr 2024 but has not reported a rollout, and Kevin Hague said in Apr 2026 that 1,000 active users of Coca-Cola's agent-based intelligence tools by the end of 2026 would be a good result, according to Sociable.

By the numbers

AI pilots run across the business: ~1,000; CIO Neeraj Tolmare, May 2025

Sales uplift with Suggested Order: 4-6%; Internal estimate for direct customer outlets (CAGNY, Feb 2026)

Microsoft cloud and AI commitment: $1.1B; Five years, announced Apr 2024; up from $250M in 2020

Digital spend (2025): ~$2.5B; Opex, capex, direct marketing and paid digital media (CAGNY, Feb 2026)

Registrations for the AI Santa experience: 30M; Create Real Magic, holiday 2024 (Pratik Thakar, Dec 2025)

Employees: ~65,900; Dec 31, 2025 (2025 Form 10-K)

Rollout, first pilot to today

2019
Coca-Cola retired its own data centers and moved fully to the cloud, CIO Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025, about six years later.
CIO fireside chat, Evercore ISI
2020
Coca-Cola signed a $250 million agreement with Microsoft, the start of the partnership that grew into its cloud and AI platform.
Coca-Cola
Aug 2022
Pratik Thakar's team began using Stable Diffusion to animate a Coca-Cola bottle through classic paintings for the Masterpiece campaign, and Coca-Cola set up incubators with AI startups.
Head of Generative AI fireside chat, UBS
Jan 2023
Coca-Cola created a cross-functional Digital Council of senior leaders, chaired by John Murphy, to take stock of its digital and AI work and cut duplicated projects.
Fortune
Feb 2023
Coca-Cola announced a partnership with OpenAI, which Pratik Thakar later called the first by a company outside the technology industry.
Head of Generative AI fireside chat, UBS
Mar 2023
Coca-Cola launched the Masterpiece campaign and the Create Real Magic platform on GPT-4 and DALL-E, where creators made more than 120,000 pieces of artwork.
Coca-Cola
Jun 2023
Coca-Cola named Pratik Thakar Global Head of Generative AI in its Marketing Transformation Office.
People Matters
Sep 2023
Coca-Cola released Y3000 Zero Sugar, a limited-edition flavor and design co-created with AI.
Coca-Cola
Apr 2024
Coca-Cola made a five-year, $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and generative AI, said it had migrated all its applications to Azure, and began testing Copilot for Microsoft 365.
Coca-Cola
Dec 2024
Coca-Cola ran its first holiday films made with generative AI and an AI Santa experience built with Accenture, Microsoft, Leonardo.ai, Mimic and OpenAI.
Coca-Cola
May 2025
Coca-Cola unveiled Fizzion, a design intelligence system built with Adobe on Firefly, as a pilot.
Coca-Cola
May 2025
Neeraj Tolmare told investors that Coca-Cola had run about 1,000 AI pilots and was moving from modernization to activation.
CIO fireside chat, Evercore ISI
Jul 2025
Coca-Cola said its AI-based pack, price and channel optimization tool had scaled from a 2024 pilot in Mexico to eight markets across four operating units.
Q2 2025 earnings call
Sep 2025
Coca-Cola joined the MIT Generative AI Impact Consortium as a founding member and launched the Save the Orange project on citrus greening.
Coca-Cola
Oct 2025
Neeraj Tolmare said Coca-Cola was scaling its AI ordering algorithm across almost all of its bottling partners after a test at about 1,000 outlets.
Fortune
Nov 2025
Coca-Cola's 2025 holiday campaign included two AI-made versions of 'Holidays Are Coming' produced with Secret Level and Silverside AI.
Coca-Cola
Feb 2026
Coca-Cola told investors that Suggested Order lifts sales 4-6%, that about two-thirds of system customers are digitized, and that it spent about $2.5 billion on digital in 2025.
CAGNY 2026 presentation
Mar 2026
Sedef Salingan Sahin became Coca-Cola's first Chief Digital Officer, reporting to new CEO Henrique Braun.
Coca-Cola

Economics & controls

Spend and ROI

Technology and digital budget

Coca-Cola spent about $2.5 billion on digital in 2025, a figure that includes operating expenses, capital expenditures, direct marketing and paid digital media (CAGNY, Feb 2026). Neeraj Tolmare put the Coca-Cola system's spending on digitization at roughly $2 billion a year in May 2025, a different measure that includes bottlers. Coca-Cola spent $5.4 billion on advertising in 2025, up from $5.1 billion in 2024, according to its 2025 Form 10-K.

What AI itself costs

Coca-Cola has not published an AI-specific budget. Coca-Cola's largest disclosed technology contract is a five-year, $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI, made in Apr 2024 and drawn on by bottlers across the system; John Murphy said the partnership grew from a $250 million agreement in 2020. Coca-Cola also buys SAP licenses for the whole system to win better terms (May 2025).

Reported ROI

Coca-Cola reported a 4-6% sales uplift with Suggested Order at CAGNY in Feb 2026, based on internal estimates for direct customer outlets. Earlier tests of the algorithm produced other figures on other measures: Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that monthly outlet sales rose by high single digits across 1,000 test outlets in three countries, and Fortune reported a 7% to 8% lift against outlets without it (Jul 2025) and a 5% to 20% rise in month-to-month sales (Oct 2025). James Quincey said the 2024 AI-made Christmas ad was quicker and cheaper to make (Feb 2025), and Henrique Braun said in Sep 2026 that campaigns now take a fraction of the cost and time, but Coca-Cola has not put a figure on those savings or on AI's effect on the business as a whole.

Productivity and headcount

Coca-Cola had about 65,900 employees at Dec 31, 2025, down from 69,700 a year earlier, mainly because of divestitures. James Quincey said in Oct 2025 that funding growth will include ongoing productivity as Coca-Cola brings in AI and agentic technology over the coming years, along with some restructuring in 2026. Coca-Cola began that reorganization with about 75 job cuts at its Atlanta headquarters, effective around Feb 28, 2026, with more expected in phases (Food Dive, Jan 2026), and has not tied the cuts to AI. John Murphy said in Jun 2026 that AI is more a growth enabler than a cost reducer.

Governance and risk

Councils and board oversight

Coca-Cola's 2026 proxy statement lists an AI Risk Governance Council among the management councils that advise leadership on risk, alongside a Data Trust Executive Advisory Council, a Digital Council and a Cybersecurity Oversight Council. Coca-Cola's Digital Council of executives, created in Jan 2023, reviews digital investment requests every quarter (May 2025), and the board's Audit Committee receives regular reports from the CISO and the CIO on cybersecurity (2025 Form 10-K).

Responsible AI guidelines

Coca-Cola has responsible AI guidelines covering deepfakes, hallucinations and social bias, which every employee receives through repeated training and which the company shares with its bottlers, Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025; Tolmare told Fortune in Jul 2025 that Coca-Cola monitors for hallucinations and deepfakes, has a response process when problems occur, and keeps humans in the loop. Pratik Thakar said in Nov 2025 that creative direction at Coca-Cola will always be human-led, and that the music in the AI-made holiday films was performed by real artists.

Brand rules inside the tools

Coca-Cola's Fizzion encodes brand guidelines into machine-readable StyleIDs so that AI-generated variations stay on brand while designers stay in control (May 2025). Coca-Cola said its Jul 2026 global visual identity came with tech-powered Design Intelligence tools that support governance and consistency for internal teams and agency partners, without saying whether they use AI.

Consumer data and consent

Coca-Cola collects first-party data through its AI experiences: people registered before talking to the 2024 AI Santa and consented to Coca-Cola using their snow globes in its marketing, Pratik Thakar said in Dec 2025. Coca-Cola's 2025 Form 10-K lists personal data protection and privacy among the laws that could restrict its business; Coca-Cola has not said whether its data is excluded from model training by its AI vendors.

Disclosed risks and regulation

Coca-Cola's 2025 Form 10-K says that laws on machine learning and artificial intelligence, including generative AI, are uncertain and evolving and could raise costs or limit how Coca-Cola uses the technology. The 10-K also names competition for staff with AI skills, AI reshaping how consumers discover brands, and the risk of failing to digitize the Coca-Cola system with data, AI, automation and robotics.

Cyber defense

Coca-Cola's cybersecurity program is run by CISO Derek Benz, who reported to the chief information officer according to the 2025 Form 10-K, and the 10-K notes that attackers are rapidly adopting new technology such as generative AI. In Jul 2026 fairlife, Coca-Cola's dairy business, disclosed a ransomware event that suspended its U.S. production, and fairlife had resumed most production at its four U.S. plants by Jul 27, 2026.

Recent signals

Oct 27, 2026
Henrique Braun said on the Q3 2026 call that the technology, data and AI Coca-Cola used during the FIFA World Cup now power campaigns such as Fanta Halloween, linking connected packaging to content and transactions.
Q3 2026 earnings call transcript
Oct 22, 2026
Coca-Cola completed a global marketing review aimed at capabilities powered by data, technology and AI, keeping WPP Open X as global creative partner and media partner outside North America, Japan and South Korea, and naming Omnicom for North American media.
Coca-Cola
Sep 9, 2026
Henrique Braun said Coca-Cola makes campaign creative with AI at a fraction of the cost and time, that about two-thirds of the 33 million outlets it serves are on digital platforms, and that a CEO-level digital council now links Coca-Cola and its bottlers.
Barclays conference transcript
Jul 29, 2026
CDO Magazine reported that Coca-Cola had appointed Sachin Vaya, who led North America data and AI at Nike, as Vice President, Data, North America, to use analytics and AI for faster decisions.
CDO Magazine
Jul 28, 2026
Coca-Cola said it collected more than 25 million first-party data points during the FIFA World Cup, and John Murphy said it is using new capabilities supported by AI and digital to raise the return on its marketing spend.
Q2 2026 earnings call transcript
Jun 4, 2026
John Murphy called AI the latest layer of Coca-Cola's revenue growth management and said he sees AI more as a growth enabler than a cost reducer.
dbAccess conference transcript
May 29, 2026
Coca-Cola's global resource allocation lead, Shelley Kench, described at Gartner's Finance Symposium how teams use AI and scenario modeling in Fuelight360 to weigh marketing and commercial investments.
CFO Dive
Apr 23, 2026
Crocs' proxy statement said Neeraj Tolmare, Coca-Cola's SVP and Global Chief Information Officer since Sep 2022, expected to leave that post in Jun 2026; Coca-Cola has not announced a successor.
Crocs 2026 proxy statement
Apr 2026
Kevin Hague told NTT's Upgrade 2026 conference that Coca-Cola went from about 60 AI use cases in 2024 to about 700 in 2025 and is building a hierarchy of AI agents, according to Sociable.
Sociable
Mar 31, 2026
Henrique Braun became CEO of Coca-Cola and Sedef Salingan Sahin became its first Chief Digital Officer, reporting to Braun, while James Quincey became Executive Chairman.
Coca-Cola
Feb 17, 2026
Coca-Cola told CAGNY that digital is its next superpower, reporting a 4-6% sales uplift with Suggested Order, about 5 billion connected identities and about $2.5 billion of digital spend in 2025.
CAGNY 2026 presentation
Feb 10, 2026
Henrique Braun said Coca-Cola is deploying digital ordering, AI and agentic AI in India through Coke Buddy, a platform connecting the bottler to its customers, to pick the next best product for each outlet.
Q4 2025 earnings call transcript
Jan 14, 2026
Coca-Cola created a Chief Digital Officer role reporting to the CEO and moved digital strategy away from President and CFO John Murphy.
Coca-Cola
Dec 3, 2025
Pratik Thakar said 30 million people registered for Coca-Cola's 2024 AI Santa experience and that Coca-Cola judges AI campaigns on speed, localization, reputation and first-party data more than on savings.
UBS Global Technology and AI Conference transcript
Dec 2, 2025
James Quincey said Coca-Cola's AI-made Christmas ad was quicker, cheaper and more customizable, and that AI-enabled selling systems produce higher revenue.
Morgan Stanley conference transcript

Quick answers

How does Coca-Cola deploy AI?: The Coca-Cola Company runs most of its AI on Microsoft Azure under a $1.1 billion cloud and generative AI commitment made in Apr 2024, and uses AI chiefly in marketing and in the ordering tools its bottlers give retailers. Coca-Cola makes holiday films and campaign content with generative AI, builds content tools with Adobe, Nvidia and WPP, and reports a 4-6% sales uplift where outlets use its AI Suggested Order. Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin has led digital, data and AI since Mar 2026.
What does Coca-Cola use AI for?: Coca-Cola had run about 1,000 AI pilots by May 2025, and the AI it describes in production centers on marketing content, ordering tools for retail outlets and revenue growth management. Coca-Cola has published a business return for one use case, a 4-6% sales uplift with Suggested Order (Feb 2026). Executives say AI-made advertising is quicker and cheaper but have given no figure, Coca-Cola reports no firm-level return from AI, and John Murphy said in Jun 2026 that he sees AI more as a growth enabler than a cost reducer.
Who leads AI at Coca-Cola?: AI at Coca-Cola is led by Sedef Salingan Sahin (Executive Vice President and Chief Digital Officer); Pratik Thakar (Global Vice President and Head of Generative AI); Derek Benz (Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin, reporting to the CEO since Mar 2026.
What AI platform does Coca-Cola use?: Coca-Cola runs most of its applications and AI on Microsoft Azure under a five-year, $1.1 billion cloud and generative AI commitment made in Apr 2024, with the rest on AWS and Google Cloud (Jul 2025), and builds tools on top with partners: Fizzion with Adobe, ShopX with Nvidia and WPP, and its own Suggested Order algorithm for retail outlets.
Which AI models does Coca-Cola use?: Coca-Cola works most closely with Microsoft and OpenAI, using OpenAI models through Azure OpenAI Service, and also uses Google, Meta and Anthropic models (Jul 2025), Adobe Firefly and video tools from AI studios; CIO Neeraj Tolmare said in May 2025 that Coca-Cola tests almost every large language model, open-source or not.
How many Coca-Cola employees use AI?: Coca-Cola has not disclosed how many of its 65,900 employees use AI; Fortune reported in Oct 2025 that employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal company data, Copilot for Microsoft 365 has been under test since Apr 2024, and every employee receives responsible AI training (May 2025).
How far has AI spread at Coca-Cola?: Coca-Cola sits at Piloting: AI runs in production in a handful of areas, including AI-made holiday advertising since 2024, Suggested Order for retail outlets and a pack, price and channel optimization tool in eight markets, out of about 1,000 pilots run by May 2025; employees use a ChatGPT tool that searches internal data (Oct 2025), and an AI Risk Governance Council and responsible AI guidelines are in place. Coca-Cola falls short of Scaling because it has disclosed no company-wide AI platform open to most employees and no count of users, its AI agents were still in pilot in Jul 2025, and its Chief Digital Officer only took charge of digital, data and AI on Mar 31, 2026.

Open questions

How many Coca-Cola employees use AI tools such as the internal ChatGPT search tool, and did the Copilot for Microsoft 365 test that began in Apr 2024 become a company-wide rollout?
How much do AI-made films and content save Coca-Cola, given that executives call them quicker and cheaper but have published no figure?
What business return do Coca-Cola's other production use cases deliver, such as the pack, price and channel tool in eight markets, connected coolers and AI-drafted briefs?
How much of the 4-6% Suggested Order uplift accrues to Coca-Cola as concentrate revenue, and how many outlets use Suggested Order?
How many of Coca-Cola's roughly 1,000 AI pilots reached production, what counts among the roughly 700 use cases reportedly in place in 2025, and how many people work on AI?
Who has been Coca-Cola's chief information officer since Neeraj Tolmare's expected departure in Jun 2026, and does that role now report to Chief Digital Officer Sedef Salingan Sahin?
How much of the $1.1 billion Microsoft commitment goes to AI services, and which models and vendors carry the most traffic?
What did Fizzion and ShopX return once they moved beyond their 2025 pilots, and have they scaled globally?
Will the 2026 restructuring, which began with about 75 headquarters job cuts, cut more jobs because of AI and agentic technology, and how many?

Sources

Coca-Cola

Filings, transcripts and investor materials

News

Data confidence

Confirmed: Stated in a primary or reputable public source.
Estimated: Derived or approximated from public reporting.
Unconfirmed: Reported, but not yet corroborated.

Coca-Cola profile · Enterprise AI diffusion report by Imagine · facts checked against their sources on Nov 1, 2026

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