PepsiCo's AI Strategy: Own the Process, Not Just the Tools

PepsiCo's AI Playbook: Buy the Tech, Own the Process

In the relentless race forAI integration, enterprises worldwide are scrambling to harness its potential. PepsiCo, however, offers a compelling playbook, a strategy that blends acquiring top-tier AI tools with an unwavering commitment to owning and refining their core processes. This approach, championed by Dr. Athina Kanioura, Chief Strategy and Transformation Officer at PepsiCo, was recently highlighted at the Salesforce Dreamforce 2025 event.

“We want to own our core AI-augmented processes, and we will not outsource,” Kanioura declared, emphasizing a vision where the company’s operational DNA resides within its people, not external providers. This isn't merely a preference; it's a strategic imperative that allows PepsiCo to maintain control and adaptability in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.

Platform Partners, Process Sovereignty

PepsiCo's AI journey isn't a sudden sprint but a sustained, multiyear effort to embed data-driven insights and AI capabilities into its fundamental operations. Kanioura's program is strategically aligned with five non-negotiable business priorities that remain constant, irrespective of industry trends:

• Consumer Closeness: Cultivating direct, deeper relationships with consumers.
• Commercial Excellence: Optimizing sales and service activation strategies.
• Operations: Streamlining logistics and manufacturing across a vast global network of over 300 plants and thousands of warehouses.
• Integrated Business Planning: Harmonizing commercial, financial, and supply chain data across multiple future horizons.
• Employee Experience: Enhancing tools, training, and workflow efficiency for the workforce.

“These key business priorities need to be redefined powered by technology,” Kanioura stated, underscoring the transformative role of technology in achieving these goals.

Building a Unified Foundation

To support this ambitious vision, PepsiCo has architected a robust technological backbone. This involves consolidating approximately fifty disparate data lakes into a single, cohesive global data foundation. Their multi-cloud strategy spans AWS and Azure, with GCP integration underway. For analytics, they've partnered with Databricks, and they've developed their own interoperability application layer, DSX. This integrated fabric ensures that every market can seamlessly access and leverage a unified pool of data and applications.

Strategic Vendor Relationships

Despite this technological prowess, Kanioura maintains a clear distinction between what PepsiCo buys or rents and what it firmly keeps in-house. “We buy your products. If we don’t influence your product roadmap, we are not interested,” she asserted. This assertive stance shapes PepsiCo’s collaborations with major tech players like Salesforce, AWS, Microsoft, ServiceNow, Nvidia, and Siemens. “We define the release cycles… based on our requirements,” she added.

This approach is particularly crucial as agentic AI increasingly finds its way into enterprise applications. PepsiCo aims to leverage hyperscalers and enterprise platforms without becoming dependent on them, ensuring flexibility and control.

Evangelizing a Change from the Old Model

This strategic pivot marks a significant departure from traditional heavy outsourcing. PepsiCo has embraced a hybrid model, communicating a clear message internally: technology providers offer the building blocks, but PepsiCo retains ownership of the architectural blueprint.

Scale, Governance, and Standardization

The sheer scale of PepsiCo’s operations—over 300 factories and thousands of warehouses worldwide—necessitates this unified approach. A fragmented tech stack previously hindered decision-making and amplified risks. The centralized model is reinforced by a strong governance framework, including quarterly oversight from the general counsel, audit committee, and the board. Furthermore, a global Responsible AI policy sets ethical guardrails, even in areas where regulations are still developing.

Kanioura’s team actively avoided the trap of “1000 AI pilots.” Instead, they focused on developing a core set of reusable implementations that any function within the organization can leverage. This standardization extends to core enterprise processes, with a70 percent common coreestablished across geographies, allowing for local customization in the remaining 30 percent to accommodate regional rules and tax requirements. Global process owners are tasked with maintaining this crucial balance.

Upskilling at Industrial Scale

Complementing its platform development, PepsiCo has invested heavily in company-wide learning initiatives. The launch of a Digital Academy provided every employee with foundational knowledge in cloud, data, and automation. Building on this, an AI Academy was introduced eighteen months ago, offering a private “PepGPT” environment with role-based certifications and specialized curricula for different job families. Even truck drivers receive applied AI training, covering aspects like dynamic routing, safety protocols, and route optimization tools integrated with advanced camera and biometric systems.

Tangible Results and Employee Growth

The impact of these initiatives is evident. A case study with the Aspen Institute in 2023 showcased the Digital Academy’s reach, with over 11,000 learning assets and 140,000 completed modules in its first year. The program has awarded 600 technical certifications across various domains like Azure, DevOps, and Power BI. PepsiCo’s “myeducation” benefit, offering no-cost tuition and fees for credentials ranging from high school diplomas to university degrees, further supports employee development, with a significant enrollment trend in in-demand digital fields. This focus on learning has demonstrably improved retention; participants are nearly twice as likely to experience a role or level change, and their attrition rate is 18% lower.

What Other Leaders Can Borrow

Kanioura's insights offer valuable lessons for executives navigating the complexities of AI implementation and vendor partnerships. Her core message revolves around partnership, but with a firm emphasis on retaining internal control and expertise.

Key Takeaways for Business Leaders:

1. Demand Roadmap Influence: Leaders must insist on having a tangible influence on vendor product roadmaps. For platforms underpinning core processes, co-design and synchronized release cycles that align with business needs are paramount. PepsiCo makes this a non-negotiable prerequisite for major partnerships.
2. Consolidate Pilots into Platforms: The focus should shift from the novelty of numerous pilots to the reusability and scalability of platforms. PepsiCo transformed hundreds of individual implementations into ten shared services, unlocking significant economies of scale and simplifying oversight.
3. Invest in People as Seriously as Platforms: Robust technological infrastructure must be matched by comprehensive employee development. PepsiCo’s Digital Academy, AI Academy, and education benefits work in tandem with their tech and data foundations, covering all employee levels and linking learning directly to career advancement.

Ultimately, Kanioura's philosophy is clear: AI transformation should not be tool-worshipping. “We want to own the process,” she reiterates. This isn't an abstract ideal; it's a practical operational stance. By controlling the process layer, an enterprise gains the agility to swap models, change vendors, and fully capitalize on technological advancements without sacrificing strategic control. This approach empowers businesses to not just adopt AI, but to master it, ensuring that technology serves the business, not the other way around.

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