“The global Christmas campaign is our year’s biggest business opportunity. [Would we] want to do cost cutting with your biggest business opportunity? No, at least not at Coca-Cola,” Thakar said. 

Coca-Cola is also experimenting with AI through more than a dozen incubators with major tech companies, gaining early access to models to test how the technology can drive creativity and efficiency, he added. Beyond marketing, the company is now applying AI to research and development, supply chain, and knowledge management—but without creating a separate AI department. 

“We don’t want to, we shouldn’t [separate AI] because then it becomes a silo,” Thakar said.