Who leads AI at Nestlé?

AI at Nestlé is led by Chris Wright (Head of Nestlé IT; Chief Information and Digital Officer); Vikrant Bhan (Group Head of Analytics, Data and Integration). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT and digitalization, reporting to the CEO (set Jan 2025).

What AI platform does Nestlé use?

Nestlé has run one SAP ERP template since 2000 and is upgrading it to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, done in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa (50,000 users, Oct 2025) and Zone Europe (Jul 2026) with the Americas last, so it can embed SAP's Joule copilot and AI across the group.

Which AI models does Nestlé use?

Nestlé gives every employee access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, runs NesGPT, which it calls its internal version of ChatGPT, and builds narrower tools with partners, such as an NVIDIA Omniverse content service with Accenture Song and a packaging-materials model with IBM Research; Nestlé has not named the models behind its tools.

How many Nestlé employees use AI?

Every Nestlé employee had Copilot Chat access in Nov 2025 and more than 100,000 were regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month, out of about 271,000 staff at the end of 2025.

How far has AI spread at Nestlé?

Nestlé has reported no business return it credits to AI: no use case carries a measured cost, revenue or headcount return, and the CHF 1.1 billion of Fuel for Growth savings in 2025 and the roughly 16,000 job cuts planned by 2027 are credited to procurement, shared services, automation and simpler structures together, with no share given to AI. Nestlé has officially reported a company-wide rollout, which places it in Piloting: its Nov 19, 2025 release said every employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat and more than 100,000 are regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month, and Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT, responsible for all IT and digitalization, reported to the CEO from Jan 2025. Nestlé falls short of Scaling because it reports no AI-credited return in any function or for the firm; its agentic sales assistant's 20% to 35% time saving comes from pilot markets, and Wright said in Jan 2026 that its revenue effect could not yet be measured.

Verified Nov 1, 2026

Nestlé

Piloting

Food and beverages
~271,000 employees
100,000+ regular AI users
No AI-credited return
SAP upgrade in 2 of 3 zones

Nestlé deploys AI mostly through bought tools on one SAP backbone: every employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, more than 100,000 were regular AI users in Nov 2025, and an SAP S/4HANA upgrade, finished in two of three zones by Jul 2026, is meant to let Nestlé run AI at scale. Nestlé uses AI in marketing, procurement, finance, R&D and factories but reports no business return it credits to AI. Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT, owns IT and digitalization.

nestle.com

Their approach to AI

The platform: Nestlé has run one SAP ERP template since 2000 and is upgrading it to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, done in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa (50,000 users, Oct 2025) and Zone Europe (Jul 2026) with the Americas last, so it can embed SAP's Joule copilot and AI across the group.
The models: Nestlé gives every employee access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, runs NesGPT, which it calls its internal version of ChatGPT, and builds narrower tools with partners, such as an NVIDIA Omniverse content service with Accenture Song and a packaging-materials model with IBM Research; Nestlé has not named the models behind its tools.
The reach: Every Nestlé employee had Copilot Chat access in Nov 2025 and more than 100,000 were regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month, out of about 271,000 staff at the end of 2025.
The catch: Nestlé reports no AI-specific savings: AI is one lever in the CHF 3.0 billion Fuel for Growth program and about 16,000 job cuts by 2027, which Nestlé credits to shared services, automation and simpler structures together.

Snapshot

Employees: ~271,000; End of 2025: about 137,000 in factories and 134,000 in administration and sales
Technology budget: Not disclosed; R&D costs CHF 1.6B and capital expenditure CHF 4.5B in 2025
AI/ML headcount: Not disclosed; Nestlé IT runs a Global IT Hub in Barcelona; no AI or data science headcount published
Who owns AI: Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT; Responsible for all IT and digitalization; reported to the CEO from Jan 2025, not on the Executive Board
Platform: SAP S/4HANA core, Copilot Chat and NesGPT; Single SAP template since 2000; upgrade done in two of three zones by Jul 2026
Models: Copilot Chat, NesGPT, SAP Joule, NVIDIA AI Enterprise; Nestlé has not named the underlying language models
Reach: 100,000+ regular AI users; Nov 2025; every employee has Copilot Chat access
Use cases: No count published; Named in marketing, sales, procurement, finance, R&D, factories, food safety and compliance

Key findings

Nestlé reports no business return it credits to AI: AI is one lever in its Fuel for Growth program, which delivered CHF 1.1 billion of savings in 2025 and targets CHF 3.0 billion by the end of 2027, alongside about 16,000 job cuts that Nestlé ties to shared services, automation and simpler structures.
Every Nestlé employee had access to Microsoft Copilot Chat in Nov 2025, and more than 100,000 were regular AI users averaging more than 40 prompts a month, out of about 271,000 employees at the end of 2025.
Nestlé is upgrading its single SAP system, run as one template since 2000, to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition so it can deploy AI and SAP's Joule copilot at scale; the upgrade reached 50,000 users in 112 countries in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa by Oct 2025 and Zone Europe in Jul 2026, with the Americas last.
Nestlé launched an AI content service in Jun 2025 that builds product digital twins on NVIDIA Omniverse with Accenture Song, hosted on Microsoft's cloud, starting from 4,000 products and aiming for 10,000 within two years.
Philipp Navratil said in Jun 2026 that Nestlé is testing AI agents at low scale and shifting its use of AI from efficiency toward growth, and Chris Wright said in Jan 2026 that the revenue effect of Nestlé's agentic virtual sales assistant could not yet be measured.

Where Nestlé sits

Stage: Piloting
Nestlé has reported no business return it credits to AI: no use case carries a measured cost, revenue or headcount return, and the CHF 1.1 billion of Fuel for Growth savings in 2025 and the roughly 16,000 job cuts planned by 2027 are credited to procurement, shared services, automation and simpler structures together, with no share given to AI. Nestlé has officially reported a company-wide rollout, which places it in Piloting: its Nov 19, 2025 release said every employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat and more than 100,000 are regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month, and Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT, responsible for all IT and digitalization, reported to the CEO from Jan 2025. Nestlé falls short of Scaling because it reports no AI-credited return in any function or for the firm; its agentic sales assistant's 20% to 35% time saving comes from pilot markets, and Wright said in Jan 2026 that its revenue effect could not yet be measured.
How the stages are defined
Ownership: Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT and digitalization, reporting to the CEO (set Jan 2025)
Platform: Hybrid: Copilot Chat and SAP bought; NesGPT, content, recipe and sales tools built in-house or with partners
Models: Microsoft Copilot Chat, NesGPT, SAP Joule, NVIDIA AI Enterprise; models not named
Hosting: Microsoft's cloud for Copilot Chat and the content service, and reportedly for the SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition core; own data centers not disclosed
Reach: 100,000+ regular AI users; Copilot Chat access for every employee (Nov 2025)

How they deploy

One SAP backbone as the base for AI

Nestlé has run a single SAP ERP business process template in 185 countries since 2000, moved it from on-premise systems to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition in 2022, and began an upgrade in 2025 that Nestlé says will let it deploy AI at scale; the upgrade was done in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa in 2025 and in Zone Europe in Jul 2026, leaving the Americas. CFO Anna Manz said in Sep 2025 that Nestlé is one of three companies in the world with a single-instance ERP across the group, which lets it see its data almost anywhere at any time.

Buy general tools, build specific ones with partners

Nestlé gives every employee access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, runs NesGPT, its internal generative AI assistant, uses generative AI features from ServiceNow and Microsoft (Jan 2026), and is embedding SAP's Joule copilot in its core systems. Nestlé builds narrower tools with partners: an AI content service on NVIDIA Omniverse with Accenture Song (Jun 2025), a generative AI tool for packaging materials with IBM Research (Jul 2025), a food safety monitor co-created with SGS, and an AI advisor for market traders with Viamo (Jun 2026). Nestlé R&D built its own recipe optimization tool.

Global tools and shared services

Anna Manz said in Sep 2025 that Nestlé is moving from letting markets pick or build their own digital tools to pushing the group's tools down the organization, because it can digitize faster by using its scale once. Nestlé said in Feb 2026 that it will expand the scope of its shared services by a factor of about three and then standardize and automate the work there, and Nestlé Business Solutions, its shared services arm, chose Hyderabad in Jul 2026 for a new Global Capability Center, set up in partnership with Genpact, to improve business processes with AI, agentic AI and automation.

AI inside the cost program

Philipp Navratil's 2025 letter to shareholders says Nestlé is simplifying its structure to become an organization better able to digitalize operations, automate processes, embed AI and use shared services, while cutting costs by CHF 3.0 billion by the end of 2027. Nestlé presents AI as one part of that transformation and has not set a separate AI target.

Marketing, innovation and agents

Philipp Navratil said in Jun 2026 that Nestlé is moving its use of AI from driving efficiencies to driving growth and is testing, at low scale, AI agents meant to work with retailers' agents on assortment, consumer experience and supply chain. Navratil said in Jul 2026 that Nestlé is increasingly using AI across marketing and innovation, and David Rennie wrote in Oct 2026 that Nestlé has given its marketers advanced analytics, agentic AI and a global network of content studios. Anna Manz said in Sep 2026 that Nestlé measures how its brands show up in large language model answers and is making its R&D knowledge available so those models cite Nestlé.

Deployment model: Nestlé runs IT and digitalization centrally under Chris Wright, whom an Oct 2024 announcement placed directly under the CEO from Jan 2025, on one SAP template used across the group; Vikrant Bhan leads analytics, data and integration, and Ralf Huebenthal leads the IT platforms that carry the SAP upgrade. The functions deliver most AI tools: R&D under CTO Stefan Palzer builds recipe and packaging tools, Operations under Stephanie Pullings Hart runs factory digital twins and procurement, David Rennie's marketing organization uses the AI content service, which supplies Nestlé's Integrated Marketing Services (250 marketing experts in seven hubs) and 45 content studios (Jun 2025), and Finance under Anna Manz, who is also responsible for Integrated Business Services (Oct 2025), uses AI analytics on the shared ERP data. Nestlé rolls the SAP upgrade out zone by zone: Asia, Oceania and Africa in 2025, Europe in Jul 2026 and the Americas last.
Model providers: Nestlé gives every employee access to Microsoft Copilot Chat (Nov 2025) and runs NesGPT, which Nestlé calls its internal version of ChatGPT and which WorkLife described in Jul 2024 as powered by the same technology as ChatGPT; Nestlé has not named the models behind NesGPT or its other tools. Chris Wright told Fortune in Jan 2026 that Nestlé uses generative AI capabilities from ServiceNow and Microsoft. Nestlé's content service uses NVIDIA AI Enterprise for generative AI and NVIDIA Omniverse and OpenUSD for product digital twins, developed with Accenture Song (Jun 2025). Nestlé R&D and IBM Research fine-tuned a chemical language model and used IBM's regression transformer to propose new packaging materials (Jul 2025). SAP's Joule copilot is to be embedded in Nestlé's core business systems as the S/4HANA upgrade spreads (Oct 2025), and the Maggi Mami AI Advisor pilot was built with the technology platform Viamo, which Nestlé names without naming a model (Jun 2026).
Data and infrastructure: Nestlé calls its move to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, begun in 2025, the world's largest SAP upgrade; the first phase covered 50,000 users in 112 countries in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa with less than 20 hours of downtime (Oct 2025), Zone Europe followed in Jul 2026, and the Americas come last. Nestlé has not itself named the cloud under its SAP environment, but diginomica reported in Dec 2025 that Microsoft was the only provider able to supply the 24TB fully virtualized nodes Nestlé needed, procured through SAP, and that Nestlé is moving its network backbone to Google. Nestlé's content service is hosted on Microsoft's cloud, Copilot Chat is a Microsoft cloud service, and Nestlé has not said whether it runs AI models in its own data centers. Anna Manz said in Sep 2025 that Nestlé holds about 0.5 billion records of first-party consumer data plus customer data, while Nestlé cited more than 340 million first-party records in Jun 2025. Vikrant Bhan said in Oct 2026 that Nestlé's single ERP gives it abundant internal data while external and observational data are fragmented, so Nestlé built a data fabric that joins competitor, syndicated and retailer data. A single manufacturing system covers nearly 90% of Nestlé's 335 factories (2025).

Platforms and internal tools

Microsoft Copilot ChatBy Nov 2025
Microsoft Copilot Chat is the general AI assistant Nestlé gives every employee. Nestlé said in Nov 2025, when it joined the Frontier Firm AI Initiative of Harvard's Digital Data Design Institute and Microsoft, that enterprise-level agents continue to add to its AI capabilities.
Users
Every employee has access; 100,000+ regular users (Nov 2025)
Models
Microsoft Copilot Chat; underlying models not named by Nestlé
Source
NesGPTGlobal pilot May 2023; North America Aug 2023
NesGPT is Nestlé's internal generative AI assistant, which Nestlé calls its internal version of ChatGPT, run in a secure, private environment. Nestlé employees in sales, product innovation, marketing and legal use NesGPT to draft content, proofread, generate ideas and analyze data, and NesGPT was available to employees globally by Jul 2024.
Users
More than 7,000 U.S. office employees in the three months to Jul 2024
Models
Not named by Nestlé; described as powered by the same technology as ChatGPT
Source
SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition and Joule2022; upgrade from 2025
Nestlé's global digital core is a single SAP template used since 2000, moved to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition in 2022. The upgrade begun in 2025 is meant to embed SAP's Joule copilot so employees can reach insights, automate routine tasks and decide faster in supply chain, procurement, retailer order fulfilment and investment prioritization.
Users
50,000 in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa (Oct 2025); Zone Europe added in Jul 2026
Models
SAP Joule
Source
AI content service with product digital twinsJun 2025
Nestlé's AI content service builds 3D digital twins of products on NVIDIA Omniverse and OpenUSD, developed with Accenture Song, so marketing teams can generate product visuals for e-commerce and digital media for brands such as Purina, Nescafé Dolce Gusto and Nespresso.
Users
Nestlé's marketing hubs and 45 content studios
Models
NVIDIA AI Enterprise
Source
Recipe optimization toolBy Nov 2025
Nestlé R&D's recipe optimization tool uses algorithms to help product developers balance ingredients, nutrition, cost and sustainability when they design or reformulate products. Vikrant Bhan said in Oct 2026 that recipe optimization draws on about 120,000 recipes held in one system.
Source
Virtual sales assistantPilot, reported Feb 2026
Nestlé built a virtual sales assistant powered by agentic AI that automates routine tasks for salespeople, running in pilot markets according to the Annual Review 2025.
Source
NesplenishJul 2026
Nesplenish is a platform Nestlé Brasil's DataLab built on its Siso analytics engine that uses AI, machine learning and statistical models to recommend retailer orders, track stock and prevent stockouts; Siso processes about 6 million SKU and store combinations a day from about 12,500 points of sale.
Users
Retailers in Brazil, including smaller ones without their own ERP
Source
SGS-Digicomply
SGS-Digicomply, co-created by Nestlé and SGS, uses AI to scan more than 10,000 trusted web sources, including scientific literature and regulatory alerts translated from 90 languages, for emerging food safety hazards, and the tool is now commercially available to small and medium-sized food companies.
Source

Vendors and partners

MicrosoftBy Jun 2025
Copilot Chat for every employee; cloud host of the AI content service; Frontier Firm AI Initiative co-sponsor · Nestlé joined the Frontier Firm AI Initiative, run by Harvard's Digital Data Design Institute (now the HBS AI Institute) and Microsoft, in Nov 2025. diginomica reported in Dec 2025 that Microsoft supplied the virtualized nodes behind Nestlé's SAP system.
SAP2000
ERP core, S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition upgrade and the Joule copilot · Nestlé has run a single SAP ERP template since 2000 and calls the upgrade it began in 2025 the world's largest SAP upgrade.
ServiceNowBy Jan 2026
Generative AI capabilities Nestlé uses alongside Microsoft's
NVIDIAJun 2025
Omniverse, OpenUSD and NVIDIA AI Enterprise behind the product digital twin content service
Accenture SongJun 2025
Co-developer of the AI content service
IBM ResearchJul 2025
Co-developer of a generative AI tool that proposes high-barrier packaging materials · Nestlé described the tool as research it will use to pick future packaging materials, not as a production system.
GenpactJul 2026
Partner for Nestlé Business Solutions' Global Capability Center in Hyderabad, bringing process intelligence and agentic AI
Fractal
Analytics partner that started with revenue growth management and has since worked across the group · As described in Fractal's own publication, Oct 2026.
SGS
Co-creator of SGS-Digicomply, an AI food safety monitoring tool
ViamoJun 2026
Technology partner for the Maggi Mami AI Advisor pilot in Central and West Africa

Leadership

AI, data and platform leaders

Chris Wright

Head of Nestlé IT; Chief Information and Digital Officer

Unconfirmed

Chris Wright has been Nestlé's global CIO since 2021 and, under an Oct 2024 announcement, reported directly to the CEO from Jan 2025 without an Executive Board seat, responsible for all information technology and digitalization. CIO Germany reported in Jul 2026 that Wright has been Chief Information and Digital Officer since January, while Nestlé's own releases through Jan 2026 call him CIO. Wright said in Nov 2025 that AI is already at work at Nestlé from farm to fork, and announced the finished European SAP upgrade in Jul 2026.

Vikrant Bhan

Group Head of Analytics, Data and Integration

Unconfirmed

Vikrant Bhan joined Nestlé in 2006, helped set up its Global Analytics Service Line as an analytics center of excellence in 2018, and leads the platforms for master data, integration, data management and analytics. Bhan said in Oct 2026 that nearly 100,000 Nestlé employees use AI copilots and that Nestlé is adding research and learning agents; a Wipro podcast page titles him Chief Data and AI Officer, a title Nestlé has not published.

Executives

Philipp Navratil

Chief Executive Officer

Philipp Navratil joined Nestlé in 2001 as an auditor, ran the Coffee Strategic Business Unit from 2020 and Nespresso from Jul 2024, and became CEO on Sep 1, 2025, after the board dismissed Laurent Freixe. Navratil announced the roughly 16,000 job cuts in Oct 2025, wrote in his 2025 letter that Nestlé must become better able to digitalize, automate and embed AI, and said in Jun 2026 that Nestlé is shifting its use of AI from efficiency toward growth.

Anna Manz

Chief Financial Officer

Anna Manz joined Nestlé as CFO in Mar 2024 from London Stock Exchange Group, where she was CFO, after CFO roles at Johnson Matthey and finance and strategy roles at Diageo. Manz is responsible for Integrated Business Services (Oct 2025) and took the M&A function from Jan 2026, and speaks for Nestlé on its SAP data backbone, AI in finance and AI-driven product discovery.

Stefan Palzer

Chief Technology Officer; Head of Innovation, Technology and R&D

Stefan Palzer joined Nestlé in 2000, headed the Nestlé Research Center from 2016 and has been CTO on the Executive Board since Jan 2018. Palzer's R&D organization built the recipe optimization tool and the IBM Research packaging-materials model.

David Rennie

Head of Strategic Business Units, Marketing and Sales

David Rennie joined Nestlé in 2005 from Procter & Gamble, led Nestlé Coffee Brands from 2020 and took over the Strategic Business Units, Marketing and Sales in Apr 2025. Rennie was quoted at the launch of the AI content service in Jun 2025 and wrote in Oct 2026 that Nestlé's marketers now work with agentic AI and global content studios.

Stephanie Pullings Hart

Chief Operations Officer

Stephanie Pullings Hart rejoined Nestlé in Jul 2023 after operations roles at Beyond Meat and Warby Parker and runs procurement, manufacturing, supply chain and engineering. Pullings Hart set the goal of end-to-end digital operations and oversees the factory systems where Nestlé plans more AI, robotics and digital twins.

Remy Ejel

CEO, Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa

Remy Ejel joined Nestlé in 1998 in Saudi Arabia and has led Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa since Jan 2022, where Nestlé ran the first phase of its SAP S/4HANA upgrade for 50,000 users in 112 countries in 2025 without interrupting operations.

Guillaume Le Cunff

CEO, Zone Europe

Guillaume Le Cunff joined Nestlé in 1998 as an internal auditor at Nestlé Waters, ran Nespresso from 2020 and has led Zone Europe since Jun 2024. Zone Europe became the second zone on Nestlé's upgraded SAP S/4HANA core in Jul 2026.

Jeff Hamilton

CEO, Zone Americas

Jeff Hamilton started at Ralston Purina in 1991, ran Nestlé Canada from 2018 and Purina PetCare in Europe from 2021, and has led Zone Americas since Jul 1, 2025. Zone Americas is the last of Nestlé's three zones due to move to the upgraded SAP S/4HANA core.

Anna Lenz

Global Head of Human Resources

Anna Lenz joined Nestlé's audit division in 2004, ran Nespresso's Zone Europe from 2020 and Nestlé Portugal from 2022, and has been Global Head of Human Resources on the Executive Board since Jan 2025.

Leanne Geale

Group General Counsel

Leanne Geale joined Nestlé in Aug 2019 from Shell, where she was Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer, and leads Legal and Compliance, a function her biography says she is digitalizing. Nestlé announced on Sep 24, 2026 that Geale will retire at the end of 2026 and that her successor joins the Executive Board in Jan 2027.

Antonia Wanner

Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer

Antonia Wanner joined Nestlé in 1996 as an in-house lawyer, led group procurement from 2017 and sustainability from 2020, reported directly to the CEO from Jan 2025, and joined the Executive Board in 2026 as Chief Communications and Sustainability Officer.

Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen

CEO, Nespresso

Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen joined Nestlé Mexico in 1992, was Nespresso's Chief Marketing Officer from 2016, ran Nespresso North America from 2020 and has led Nespresso on the Executive Board since Nov 2025. Nespresso is one of the brands on Nestlé's AI content service (Jun 2025).

AI org map

Central IT and digitalization under a CIO; AI tools delivered by the global functions on one SAP backbone

Nestlé has no chief AI or data officer on its Executive Board. An Oct 2024 announcement placed Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT and responsible for all IT and digitalization, directly under the CEO from Jan 2025, and Laurent Freixe, then CEO, told shareholders in Apr 2025 that he had put IT and digitalization under his own responsibility. Nestlé's analytics, data and integration work is led by Vikrant Bhan. The AI tools themselves come from the global functions: R&D under Stefan Palzer, Operations under Stephanie Pullings Hart, marketing under David Rennie and Finance and business services under Anna Manz.

Nestlé has not published how many AI, data or IT specialists it employs. Nestlé IT, led by Chris Wright, describes itself as running the biggest IT operations in the consumer goods industry and has a Global IT Hub in Barcelona, and Vikrant Bhan's analytics, data and integration teams sit in Vevey, Barcelona, Milan, Bangalore, Sydney, St Louis, Mexico and Argentina (Sep 2025). Nestlé's marketing organization had 250 marketing experts in seven Integrated Marketing Services hubs and 45 content studios in Jun 2025, and R&D under CTO Stefan Palzer builds AI tools for recipes and packaging.

Reporting lines

Chief Executive Officer
Philipp Navratil
- Information Technology and Digitalization
  Chris Wright
  Reporting line set from Jan 2025 under Laurent Freixe; not restated since Philipp Navratil became CEO
  - IT Platforms
    Ralf Huebenthal
    Runs the SAP S/4HANA upgrade and the network
- Finance & Control and Integrated Business Services
  Anna Manz, CFO
  Also took the M&A function from Jan 2026
  - Nestlé Business Solutions
    Luca Fichera
    Shared service centers that Nestlé plans to expand by a factor of about three (Feb 2026); Business Services reported to the CFO under the Oct 2024 announcement
- Innovation, Technology and R&D
  Stefan Palzer, CTO
  Recipe optimization tool and the IBM Research packaging model
- Operations
  Stephanie Pullings Hart, COO
  Procurement, manufacturing and supply chain; factory digital twins
- Strategic Business Units, Marketing and Sales
  David Rennie
  AI content service, content studios and the virtual sales assistant pilot
- Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa
  Remy Ejel
  First zone on the upgraded SAP core (2025)
- Zone Europe
  Guillaume Le Cunff
  Second zone on the upgraded SAP core (Jul 2026)
- Zone Americas
  Jeff Hamilton
  Last zone due on the upgraded SAP core
Analytics, Data and Integration
Vikrant Bhan
Platforms for master data, integration, data management and analytics; Nestlé has not published where the unit reports

Nestlé's management page, checked Nov 1, 2026, lists the Executive Board and no CIO, chief data officer or AI chief. Nestlé has not said whether Chris Wright still reports to the CEO under Philipp Navratil, where Vikrant Bhan's unit reports, or whether Nestlé Business Solutions still reports to the CFO. The functions' and zones' lines to the CEO follow the Dec 31, 2025 organization chart in Nestlé's Corporate Governance Report, which does not show IT.

Named people

Executive sponsors

Philipp Navratil
Chief Executive Officer
Anna Manz
Chief Financial Officer · Responsible for Integrated Business Services (Oct 2025)

IT, data and digitalization

Nestlé has not published the size of its IT organization.

Chris Wright
Head of Nestlé IT; Chief Information and Digital Officer · Reported to the CEO from Jan 2025
Vikrant Bhan
Group Head of Analytics, Data and Integration · Titled Chief Data and AI Officer on a Wipro podcast page
Ralf Huebenthal
Global Head of IT Platforms · SAP S/4HANA upgrade and network (Dec 2025)

Business services

Luca Fichera
Head of Nestlé Business Solutions · Shared services arm; Hyderabad Global Capability Center with Genpact (Jul 2026)

R&D

Stefan Palzer
Chief Technology Officer; Head of Innovation, Technology and R&D

Marketing and sales

250 marketing experts in seven hubs, plus 45 content studios (Jun 2025)

David Rennie
Head of Strategic Business Units, Marketing and Sales

Operations

Stephanie Pullings Hart
Chief Operations Officer

Zone delivery

Remy Ejel
CEO, Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa · First zone on the upgraded SAP core (2025)
Guillaume Le Cunff
CEO, Zone Europe · Second zone on the upgraded SAP core (Jul 2026)
Jeff Hamilton
CEO, Zone Americas · Last zone due on the upgraded SAP core

Use cases

Nestlé has not published a count of its AI use cases; it names AI in marketing content, e-commerce, sales, procurement, finance, R&D, factories, food safety and compliance, plus pilots of an agentic sales assistant and an AI advisor for market traders in Africa. Nestlé has published no measured business return for any single AI use case: its figures for the digital twin content service and the sales assistant are launch claims and time savings. Nestlé reports no firm-level AI return; AI is one lever in the Fuel for Growth program, which delivered CHF 1.1 billion of savings in 2025 and targets CHF 3.0 billion by the end of 2027.

Use case	Area	Status
AI-powered product digital twins for content Nestlé's content service builds 3D digital twins of products on NVIDIA Omniverse with Accenture Song, so marketers can produce product visuals for e-commerce and digital media; Nestlé had 4,000 digital master products in Jun 2025, aims for 10,000, and said at launch that the service cuts the time and cost of scaling digital twins by over 70%.	Marketing	In production
Digital shelf and personalized content tools Nestlé rolled out AI tools at scale in e-commerce to improve its products' digital shelf performance and generate personalized content (Apr 2025).	Marketing and e-commerce	In production
Generative AI concept ideation and testing Nestlé marketers use a generative AI assistant to create and refine product concepts and test them on synthetic consumer personas, and marketing and R&D teams use always-on trend tracking to find innovation areas (Nov 2024).	Marketing and innovation	In production
Brand visibility in large language models Nestlé tracks daily how often AI systems query its websites, measures how its brands show up against consumer prompts with third-party data, and makes its R&D knowledge available so models cite Nestlé (Sep 2026).	Marketing	In production
Agentic virtual sales assistant Nestlé built a virtual sales assistant powered by agentic AI that automates up to 40% of routine tasks, saving salespeople in pilot markets 20% to 35% of the time on those tasks (Feb 2026).	Sales	Pilot
In-store execution and promotional spend Nestlé sales teams increased their use of AI and analytics to optimize in-store execution and promotional spending in 2025.	Sales	In production
Invoice review Nestlé rolled out AI tools to review supplier invoices, which Laurent Freixe listed in Jul 2025 among the sources of procurement's first-half hard savings without giving a separate figure.	Procurement	In production
Supplier contract review Nestlé procurement uses AI to review hundreds of thousands of supplier contracts for inconsistencies between global terms and how they are applied locally (Nov 2025).	Procurement	In production
AI analytics, reporting and forecasting Nestlé finance teams use AI on the shared ERP data to find performance problems and their causes, automate data cleansing and report generation, and replace manual forecasting with statistical models; Anna Manz expects agentic AI to advise teams on actions.	Finance	In production
Recipe optimization Nestlé R&D's recipe optimization tool helps product developers balance ingredients, nutrition, cost and sustainability.	R&D	In production
Packaging material discovery with IBM Research Nestlé R&D and IBM Research built a generative AI tool that proposes high-barrier packaging materials, weighing cost, recyclability and function; Nestlé says it will use the tool to identify future materials.	R&D	Pilot
Factory AI and digital twins Nestlé uses AI for energy, asset and performance optimization and food safety surveillance across its more than 300 factories, including digital twins of equipment and production lines (Nov 2025).	Manufacturing	In production
SGS-Digicomply hazard monitoring SGS-Digicomply uses AI to scan more than 10,000 web sources in real time for existing or emerging food safety hazards.	Quality and food safety	In production
Speak Up case management Nestlé added AI-driven features to its third-party-run Speak Up system in 2025 to simplify global case management and reporting.	Compliance	In production
NutriLearn nutrition training NutriLearn is Nestlé's AI-based nutrition training for employees, which continued in 2025.	Workforce	In production
Petivity health insights Purina's Petivity Smart Litterbox tracks changes in a cat's health and behavior data, and Nestlé's proprietary AI shares the findings and advice, including when to see a vet, through a mobile app.	Petcare	In production
Maggi Mami AI Advisor Nestlé is piloting an AI business advisor, reached by toll-free call on any basic phone with voice recognition in local languages, for the more than 70,000 women food sellers in Central and West Africa who account for over 70% of Maggi sales there (Jun 2026).	Route to market	Pilot
SAP Joule in core processes Nestlé plans to embed SAP's Joule copilot in supply chain, procurement, retailer order fulfilment and investment prioritization as the S/4HANA upgrade spreads.	Enterprise systems	Announced
Copilot Chat for employees Every Nestlé employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, and more than 100,000 used AI regularly in Nov 2025.	Firmwide	In production

Adoption

Nestlé spread AI in layers: data and analytics on a single SAP backbone since 2000, the internal NesGPT assistant from a global pilot in May 2023, generative AI tools in marketing and R&D by Nov 2024, AI in procurement, e-commerce and content in 2025, Microsoft Copilot Chat access for every employee by Nov 2025, and agentic tools in sales, tested at low scale, in 2026. More than 100,000 Nestlé employees were regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month in Nov 2025, and Nestlé's Annual Review 2025 claims the largest number of generative AI users in the consumer goods industry. Outside reports count Nestlé's users differently: Fortune reported about 100,000 monthly Copilot users in Jan 2026 and diginomica more than 100,000 daily users of Copilot or NesGPT in Dec 2025, while Nestlé itself has not published weekly active users. About half of Nestlé's 271,000 staff work in factories (about 137,000 at the end of 2025).

By the numbers

Regular AI users: 100,000+; Averaging 40+ prompts a month; every employee has Copilot Chat access (Nov 2025)

Product digital twins for AI content: 4,000; Baseline in Jun 2025, with a target of 10,000 within two years

Zones on the upgraded SAP core: 2 of 3; Asia, Oceania and Africa (50,000 users, Oct 2025) and Europe (Jul 2026), in an upgrade meant to run AI at scale; the Americas come last

Employees: ~271,000; End of 2025, down from about 277,000 in 2024 (Annual Review 2025)

Planned headcount reductions: ~16,000; By end-2027, 12,000 of them white-collar; Nestlé ties them to digitalization, automation, AI and shared services together

Rollout, first pilot to today

2000
Nestlé began running a single SAP ERP business process template, later deployed in 185 countries.
Nestlé
Nov 2021
Nestlé held a virtual investor seminar titled Accelerating our digital transformation.
Nestlé investor seminars
2022
Nestlé moved from on-premise ERP systems to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition.
Nestlé
May 2023
Nestlé piloted NesGPT, its internal generative AI assistant, globally, introduced it to North American offices in Aug 2023 and made it available globally by Jul 2024.
WorkLife
Nov 2024
Laurent Freixe told investors he wanted Nestlé to be a real-time, data and AI powered organization, and Nestlé showed generative AI tools for concept ideation and testing in marketing and R&D.
Capital Markets Day 2024
Jan 2025
Chris Wright, responsible for all IT and digitalization, began reporting directly to the CEO under an Oct 2024 announcement.
Nestlé
Apr 2025
Nestlé said AI tools had been rolled out at scale in e-commerce to improve its digital shelf and personalized content.
Three-month sales 2025
Apr 2025
Nestlé published a revised Code of Business Conduct with a section on responsible and ethical AI use.
Code of Business Conduct
Jun 2025
Nestlé launched an AI content service that builds product digital twins on NVIDIA Omniverse with Accenture Song, hosted on Microsoft's cloud.
Nestlé
Jul 2025
Nestlé said AI invoice review tools contributed to first-half procurement savings, and announced a generative AI packaging-materials tool built with IBM Research.
Half-year 2025 results call
Oct 2025
Philipp Navratil announced about 16,000 job cuts by the end of 2027 as Nestlé simplifies, digitalizes and automates its processes and makes fuller use of shared services.
Nine-month sales 2025
Oct 2025
Nestlé announced it had finished the first phase of its SAP S/4HANA upgrade for 50,000 users in 112 countries in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa.
Nestlé
Nov 2025
Nestlé said every employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat and more than 100,000 are regular AI users, as it joined the Frontier Firm AI Initiative.
Nestlé
Feb 2026
Nestlé reported an agentic AI virtual sales assistant in pilot markets and AI-powered content operations, and set out a plan to triple the scope of its shared services and automate them.
Annual Review 2025
Jun 2026
Nestlé began piloting the Maggi Mami AI Advisor for women food sellers in Central and West Africa.
Nestlé
Jul 2026
Nestlé finished the SAP S/4HANA upgrade in Zone Europe, the second of three zones, leaving the Americas.
CIO Germany

Economics & controls

Spend and ROI

Technology budget

Nestlé does not disclose a technology or IT budget. Nestlé's research and development costs were CHF 1,613 million in 2025, down from CHF 1,667 million in 2024, and its capital expenditure was CHF 4,527 million in 2025, down from CHF 5,638 million, with a further CHF 384 million spent on intangible assets (2025 Financial Statements).

What AI itself costs

Nestlé has not published what it spends on AI, on Copilot Chat or on the SAP S/4HANA upgrade. Laurent Freixe, then CEO, told shareholders in Apr 2025 that Nestlé would invest decisively in an ambitious program to bring new technologies to every stage of its value chain, without giving a figure.

Reported ROI

Nestlé reports no firm-level return on AI. Nestlé's Fuel for Growth program delivered CHF 1.1 billion of savings in 2025, more than CHF 350 million ahead of plan, reached CHF 1.7 billion cumulatively by Jul 2026, and targets CHF 2.0 billion in 2026 and CHF 3.0 billion by the end of 2027; Nestlé credits procurement, operational efficiency and shared services together and has not separated AI's share. Laurent Freixe said in Jul 2025 that procurement's first-half hard savings came partly from AI tools that review invoices, alongside e-auctions and global specification catalogues, without a separate figure.

Productivity markers

Anna Manz said in Feb 2026 that moving content adaptation into shared services and standardizing and automating it cut its cost by up to 75% and sped delivery by over 70%, which she credited to removing fragmentation and automating, not to AI alone; Nestlé's slide put the effect of standardizing and automating shared-service work at 30% to 75% lower cost. Nestlé's agentic virtual sales assistant saves salespeople in pilot markets 20% to 35% of the time on routine tasks (Feb 2026), and Nestlé told investors in Nov 2024 that generative AI tools cut the time marketing and R&D teams spend finding innovation areas by 70% and the time marketers spend creating product concepts by 50%.

Headcount

Nestlé had about 271,000 employees at the end of 2025, down from about 277,000 a year earlier. Philipp Navratil announced in Oct 2025 a cut of about 12,000 white-collar roles over two years and a further 4,000 in manufacturing and supply chain, about 16,000 in total by the end of 2027. Nestlé expects about CHF 1 billion of annual white-collar savings by the end of 2027, CHF 200 million of it achieved in 2025, at a restructuring cost of about CHF 2 billion, and Navratil's 2025 letter ties the cuts to an organization better able to digitalize, automate, embed AI and use shared services. Chris Wright told Fortune in Jan 2026 that AI is one of the factors behind the cuts.

Governance and risk

AI in the code of conduct

Nestlé's Code of Business Conduct, revised in Apr 2025, added a section on responsible and ethical AI use that tells employees to understand AI's limits, check fitness for purpose before use, follow Nestlé's policies and apply risk assessment, monitoring and human oversight. The Code points employees to an internal Generative Artificial Intelligence Responsible Use Guidance.

Data ethics and privacy

Nestlé's Data Ethics Framework sets principles for how data is used, including awareness of bias and discrimination, and Nestlé's Global Privacy Program assigns data protection champions to track developments in data protection, AI, data ethics and e-commerce. Nestlé's in-scope legal entities have signed its Binding Corporate Rules for internal personal data transfers (2025).

Board and executive oversight

Nestlé said in Feb 2026 that its board's Sustainability Committee would become a Science, Technology and Sustainability Committee after the Apr 2026 Annual General Meeting, with a remit that adds technological developments and digitalization. Progress on digitalization was one of the additional group objectives used to set Executive Board bonuses for 2025.

Disclosed risks

Nestlé's 2025 risk review lists failure to use advances in technologies, data and AI as a key risk, alongside cyberattacks and personal data protection, with the acceleration of its data- and AI-powered digital transformation, including people capabilities, as the stated mitigation.

Cyber incidents

Nestlé released a new Crisis Management Standard in 2025 with a specific procedure and escalation path for cyber security incidents, including personal data breaches and ransomware attacks, and runs Information Security Management Systems as a control.

Recent signals

Oct 30, 2026
Vikrant Bhan, who leads analytics, data and integration at Nestlé, said nearly 100,000 employees use AI copilots, that Nestlé is adding research and learning agents, and that its recipe optimization draws on about 120,000 recipes in one system.
Fractal ai:sight
Oct 2026
David Rennie wrote that Nestlé has given its marketers advanced analytics, agentic AI and a global network of content studios, and that 50,000 employees will be trained on brand building by the end of 2026.
Nestlé
Sep 8, 2026
Anna Manz said Nestlé tracks daily how far AI systems, not people, query its websites, measures how its brands appear in large language model answers, and makes its R&D knowledge available so models cite Nestlé.
Barclays conference transcript
Jul 23, 2026
Philipp Navratil said Nestlé is increasingly using AI across marketing and innovation, as Fuel for Growth savings reached CHF 1.7 billion cumulatively against a CHF 2.0 billion target for 2026.
Half-year 2026 results call
Jul 22, 2026
Nestlé Brasil launched Nesplenish, a platform built by its DataLab that uses AI and machine learning to recommend retailer orders and prevent stockouts.
Mercado & Consumo
Jul 15, 2026
Chris Wright announced that Nestlé's European business units, about 50,000 employees in 35 countries, had finished the SAP S/4HANA upgrade, leaving the Americas as the last stage.
CIO Germany
Jul 6, 2026
Nestlé Business Solutions, Nestlé's shared services arm, chose Hyderabad for a new Global Capability Center built with Genpact to apply data, AI and automation to business services.
Nestlé India
Jun 15, 2026
Nestlé began piloting the Maggi Mami AI Advisor with Viamo, a voice-based business advisor for women food sellers in Central and West Africa.
Nestlé
Jun 2, 2026
Philipp Navratil said Nestlé is testing AI agents at low scale and moving its use of AI from driving efficiencies to driving growth, speaking at Deutsche Bank's dbAccess conference.
Food Business News
Feb 19, 2026
Nestlé's strategic update set out AI-powered content operations, a plan to expand shared services by a factor of about three and automate them, and CHF 1 billion of white-collar savings by the end of 2027.
Full-year 2025 results call
Feb 19, 2026
Nestlé's Annual Review 2025 reported an agentic AI virtual sales assistant in pilot markets, AI in finance forecasting and reporting and AI-driven upgrades to its Speak Up system, and claimed the most generative AI users in the consumer goods industry.
Annual Review 2025
Feb 19, 2026
Nestlé's 2025 Non-Financial Statement reported a new section on responsible and ethical AI use in its Code of Business Conduct and the continued rollout of NutriLearn, its AI-based nutrition training.
Non-Financial Statement 2025
Jan 7, 2026
Chris Wright told Fortune that about 100,000 Nestlé workers use Microsoft Copilot monthly, that Nestlé is piloting generative AI for order fulfilment plans and pricing analytics, and that the virtual sales assistant's revenue effect cannot yet be measured.
Fortune
Dec 17, 2025
diginomica reported that Nestlé's SAP upgrade runs in three stages by zone, that Microsoft supplied the virtualized nodes behind it, and that more than 100,000 Nestlé employees use Copilot or NesGPT every day.
diginomica
Nov 19, 2025
Nestlé joined the Frontier Firm AI Initiative of Harvard's Digital Data Design Institute and Microsoft, saying every employee has access to Copilot Chat and more than 100,000 are regular AI users.
Nestlé

Quick answers

How does Nestlé deploy AI?: Nestlé deploys AI mostly through bought tools on one SAP backbone: every employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, more than 100,000 were regular AI users in Nov 2025, and an SAP S/4HANA upgrade, finished in two of three zones by Jul 2026, is meant to let Nestlé run AI at scale. Nestlé uses AI in marketing, procurement, finance, R&D and factories but reports no business return it credits to AI. Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT, owns IT and digitalization.
What does Nestlé use AI for?: Nestlé has not published a count of its AI use cases; it names AI in marketing content, e-commerce, sales, procurement, finance, R&D, factories, food safety and compliance, plus pilots of an agentic sales assistant and an AI advisor for market traders in Africa. Nestlé has published no measured business return for any single AI use case: its figures for the digital twin content service and the sales assistant are launch claims and time savings. Nestlé reports no firm-level AI return; AI is one lever in the Fuel for Growth program, which delivered CHF 1.1 billion of savings in 2025 and targets CHF 3.0 billion by the end of 2027.
Who leads AI at Nestlé?: AI at Nestlé is led by Chris Wright (Head of Nestlé IT; Chief Information and Digital Officer); Vikrant Bhan (Group Head of Analytics, Data and Integration). Ownership of AI on the org chart: Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT and digitalization, reporting to the CEO (set Jan 2025).
What AI platform does Nestlé use?: Nestlé has run one SAP ERP template since 2000 and is upgrading it to SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition, done in Zone Asia, Oceania and Africa (50,000 users, Oct 2025) and Zone Europe (Jul 2026) with the Americas last, so it can embed SAP's Joule copilot and AI across the group.
Which AI models does Nestlé use?: Nestlé gives every employee access to Microsoft Copilot Chat, runs NesGPT, which it calls its internal version of ChatGPT, and builds narrower tools with partners, such as an NVIDIA Omniverse content service with Accenture Song and a packaging-materials model with IBM Research; Nestlé has not named the models behind its tools.
How many Nestlé employees use AI?: Every Nestlé employee had Copilot Chat access in Nov 2025 and more than 100,000 were regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month, out of about 271,000 staff at the end of 2025.
How far has AI spread at Nestlé?: Nestlé has reported no business return it credits to AI: no use case carries a measured cost, revenue or headcount return, and the CHF 1.1 billion of Fuel for Growth savings in 2025 and the roughly 16,000 job cuts planned by 2027 are credited to procurement, shared services, automation and simpler structures together, with no share given to AI. Nestlé has officially reported a company-wide rollout, which places it in Piloting: its Nov 19, 2025 release said every employee has access to Microsoft Copilot Chat and more than 100,000 are regular AI users averaging over 40 prompts a month, and Chris Wright, head of Nestlé IT, responsible for all IT and digitalization, reported to the CEO from Jan 2025. Nestlé falls short of Scaling because it reports no AI-credited return in any function or for the firm; its agentic sales assistant's 20% to 35% time saving comes from pilot markets, and Wright said in Jan 2026 that its revenue effect could not yet be measured.

Open questions

Which language models sit behind NesGPT and Nestlé's other tools, and does Nestlé run any models in its own data centers or on a cloud other than Microsoft's?
Does Nestlé's SAP S/4HANA Cloud Private Edition environment run on Microsoft's cloud, as diginomica reported in Dec 2025? Nestlé has not said.
How much of the CHF 3.0 billion Fuel for Growth savings and the roughly 16,000 job cuts comes from AI, as opposed to shared services, procurement and simpler structures?
What does Nestlé spend on AI, on Copilot Chat and on the SAP S/4HANA upgrade?
Does Chris Wright still report to the CEO under Philipp Navratil, and is his title Chief Information Officer, as in Nestlé's releases through Jan 2026, or Chief Information and Digital Officer, as CIO Germany reported in Jul 2026?
Is Vikrant Bhan Nestlé's Chief Data and AI Officer, as a Wipro podcast page says, or Group Head of Analytics, Data and Integration, as Fractal wrote in Oct 2026, and to whom does he report?
How many Nestlé employees use AI each week? Nestlé reports more than 100,000 regular users averaging 40 prompts a month (Nov 2025), while Fortune reported about 100,000 monthly Copilot users and diginomica more than 100,000 daily users of Copilot or NesGPT.
What business return do Nestlé's deployed AI tools deliver, such as the content service, whose over 70% cut in the time and cost of scaling digital twins was a launch claim (Jun 2025), invoice and contract review, finance analytics, recipe optimization and the digital shelf tools?
Will the agentic virtual sales assistant move beyond pilot markets, and what revenue has it added, which Chris Wright said in Jan 2026 could not yet be measured?
When will the SAP S/4HANA upgrade reach Zone Americas, and what will Joule do in production?
How many AI, data and IT specialists does Nestlé employ, and where do they sit?
Which figure for Nestlé's first-party consumer data is current: more than 340 million records (Jun 2025) or about 0.5 billion (Sep 2025)?

Sources

Nestlé

Filings, reports and investor materials

Partners

News and interviews

Data confidence

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

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

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