The Coca-Cola Company and Microsoft announce five-year strategic partnership to explore GenAI capabilities

Delhi: Microsoft Corp. and The Coca-Cola Company on Tuesday, announced a five-year strategic partnership.

As part of the partnership, Coca-Cola has made a $1.1 billion commitment to the Microsoft Cloud and its generative AI capabilities. 

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

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

He added, “We are proud to support Coca-Cola as it continues to embrace the era of AI and looks to solutions like Azure OpenAI Service and Copilot for Microsoft 365 to drive innovation across every area of its business.”

Coca-Cola has migrated all its applications to Microsoft Azure, with most major independent bottling partners following suit. Coca-Cola has been innovating with generative AI for nearly a year and has already leveraged Azure OpenAI Service to reimagine everything from marketing to manufacturing and supply chain and beyond. 

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

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

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

The agreement aims at providing Coca-Cola access to Microsoft’s cloud and AI platforms as well as solutions such as Microsoft 365, Power BI, Dynamics 365, Defender and Fabric. 

“Our expanded partnership with Microsoft is an important next chapter in Coca-Cola’s journey toward a digital-first enterprise powered by emerging technologies,” said Neeraj Tolmare, senior Vice-president and global chief information officer for The Coca-Cola Company. “Microsoft’s capabilities help accelerate our adoption of AI to create incremental enterprise value.”