AI Beneficiaries
5 min read 9 Nov 23
PepsiCo
PepsiCo benefits from AI by using it to track consumer demand and incorporating it for new product development1, which results in faster time to market. This enables the company to drive incremental sales growth. The company’s Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer Athia Kanioura told the media that the use of AI has reduced development cycles from “years to months,” because it can quickly analyse consumer trends and react to them.
AI-powered market intelligence
The company uses Tastewise, an Israeli-based private company founded by former Google Chief Marketing Officer Alon Chen, to analyse huge amounts of food data available online and get better insights into what its customers may want2. (Tastewise data quoted by the media showed that it had gone through more than 226 billion recipe interactions and 22.5 billion social media posts, among other things, in order to get information about people’s taste).
With the insights generated in this way, PepsiCo gets a clearer picture of what interests people. Due to this feedback, which would probably not come up in consumer surveys, PepsiCo was able to incorporate seaweed as a flavour in some of its snacks. Another way in which the company uses AI is to search for perfection for its Cheetos corn puffs, in terms of taste, texture and looks.
AI-driven product development
“There is a lot of R&D and engineering going into making sure every time you open a bag of Cheetos, they’re perfect,” Denise Lefebvre, PepsiCo SVP Foods R&D, said (https://www.pepsico.com/our-stories/story/artificial-intelligence-at-pepsico). Variations in the quality of corn and cheese, as well as cooking temperature, can cause irregularities, which were previously spotted while Cheetos were moving through the processing line, causing it to stop, which was inefficient.
A team of engineers, machine operators, product developers and food scientists created an algorithm for AI to “model” a Cheeto. A computer uses this to scan each cheese puff as it comes down the processing line, responding in nanoseconds to make adjustments to temperature, shape and consistency as needed, and keeping the flow constant, which removes inefficiency.
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2 How Coca-Cola and PepsiCo uses AI to Bubble Up Innovation (analyticsindiamag.com)
The value of investments will fluctuate, which will cause prices to fall as well as rise and you may not get back the original amount you invested. Past performance is not a guide to future performance.