In its first year of operations, Coca-Cola sold only around 25 bottles of Coke. Today, the company sells approximately 1.9 billion servings of its drinks across over 200 countries. In fact, despite sharing a smaller share of the market, its competitor PepsiCo is still one of the largest companies worldwide. What may not be common knowledge is that both the rivals– Coca-Cola and PepsiCo employ artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to stay at the top of their game. Today, we take a peek into how these beverage companies are employing technologies to remain competitive. According to Greg Chambers, Global Director of Digital Innovation at Coca-Cola, "AI is the foundation for everything" that the Coca-Cola Company does.

With over 500 soft drink brands being sold to customers in more than 200 countries, the Coca-Cola Company is the largest beverage company in the world. Every day, thirsty consumers drink more than 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola products. An operation on this scale clearly generates a lot of data – whether that's from the production and distribution processes, sales, customer feedback or any other part of the process. One of the reasons the company has remained at the top for over 130 years is its ability to embrace innovation and new technology, including Big Data technology. Coca-Cola has a solid data-driven strategy underpinning decisions right across the business, and it's known to have invested extensive resources into research and development in areas like artificial intelligence (AI) to make the most of the data it collects.

When David Godsman joined Coca-Cola as chief digital officer nearly a year ago, his remit was to transform the traditionally brick-and-mortar business into a "consumer-centric beverage brand" for the digital era. Godsman--who spent the past several years in digital banking at Bank of America before heading up the company's payments and commerce unit--is the first person in the role for the beverage brand. Coca-Cola is just one of many brands across a variety of industries grappling with how to serve consumers through new digital platforms. Using data, artificial intelligence and connected devices, it's trying to rapidly test and enact new customer experiences and services. "This is a large digital transformation exclusive to the Coca-Cola Company," he said.