Dive Brief:
- PepsiCo is aiming to accelerate its enterprisewide digital transformation as part of a multiyear agreement with AWS announced Wednesday.
- IT modernization, cloud migration and generative AI are among the key initiatives. The snack and beverage company plans to build, iterate and test capabilities on AWS for its employees and customers after migrating applications and workloads. Improving real-time insights and boosting operational efficiency are also on the docket.
- The household brand has already integrated its internal generative AI platform, PepGenX, with Amazon Bedrock to increase flexibility and capability for application development, the companies said.
Dive Insight:
PepsiCo continues its steady march of modernization, leveling up capabilities and strengthening the technology foundation along the way.
“We plan to use data and AI in a much more scaled way, and we were not able to do that five years ago … because our data was not in a way that our people could be empowered to use the data, as they are today,” PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said during a conference last year.
The AWS partnership builds on the company’s commitment to execute “a much more aggressive” data and AI strategy that Laguarta laid out in February 2024, which relies on PepsiCo’s cloud infrastructure.
“A cloud-first approach has been essential to PepsiCo’s ongoing digital transformation,” Athina Kanioura, EVP and chief strategy and transformation officer at PepsiCo, said in the Wednesday announcement. “This strategic collaboration will strengthen our mature cloud strategy and unlock new levels of agility, intelligence and scalability across the company.”
As PepsiCo expanded its cloud estate, executives worked to manage costs.
Enterprises across industries are facing ballooning cloud bills as AI adoption drives up costs. Nearly 3 in 4 IT pros blamed the AI boom for “unmanageable” cloud bills last year, a Vanson Bourne report found.
Up and down supermarket aisles, familiar brands are facing headwinds as consumers cut back spending and tariff talk sparks uncertainty, raising the stakes for big technology investments. Clorox pushed back against analyst concerns over the cost of its IT modernization initiatives during a February earnings call, emphasizing the long-term value that would be added.
Businesses may put some projects on hold if the outlook dampens.
“The reality of a slowing economy and rising unemployment will have a direct impact on IT spending,” IDC said in an April research note.
