NEW YORK — Artificial intelligence (AI) has been projected to revolutionize many aspects of business. In food and beverage, it is being used in supply chain management, product development, marketing and several other functions.

But during a presentation at the Morgan Stanley Global Consumer and Retail Conference, James Robert B. Quincey, chairman and chief executive officer of The Coca-Cola Co., questioned whether AI will give companies a competitive advantage.

“There’s uncertainty,” Quincey said during the Dec. 3 presentation. “Like what are the long-term economics of these things going to be? I mean, there’s a lot of money being spent on servers. It’s not clear to me what the price of using these services is going to be in five years’ time.”

He said Coca-Cola is using AI analytical models for supply chain management, and research and development that are delivering results.

“I think more recently you’ve got two things that are layering in … which are encouraging for long-term value,” he said.

The first is a selling platform that may be used by sales representatives or retailers 24/7.

“So the system now has all the data,” Quincey said. “It can now complement the salesperson and the retailer because those are the two people deciding what goes in the store and complement them. And that is generating (an) uplift in sales through the bottling system. So AI systems that can complement and accelerate the effectiveness of what the salesperson and the retailer decide to do in the store is proving that it can drive results.”

The second is the production of point-of-sale materials being produced using generative AI.

“We spend hundreds of millions (of dollars) every year on point-of-sale material,” Quincey said. “You think of how many photos are taken of people or meals or bottles. We have an AI app now. You just type in what you want the point-of-sale material to be, and it spits it out.”

Yet despite the benefits the company is receiving from using AI-based applications, Quincey remains unconvinced about the technology’s overall value.

“… It has to be clear to me what is the competitive advantage for me versus what's the price of entry,” he said. “If generative AI is just the new operating system on your computer — everyone has it, everyone uses it — fine, we just adapt and move on, just like we adapted to smartphones. Or does it somehow confer a competitive advantage on me because of the way I use it or my access to it or whatever? So that is all yet to play out.”

The international beverage manufacturer owns dairy brand fairlife.