Yahoo Finance Coke 'exploring ways to leverage AI' (because every company needs an AI strategy now)
Even Coca-Cola (KO) has an artificial intelligence strategy now.
The beverage company’s first quarter earnings release featured the usual components, showing growth in a new drink category and an increase in soft drink sales.
But the company also dedicated a paragraph to highlighting its collaboration with “cutting-edge technology” platforms such as ChatGPT and DALL-E.
“The company is also exploring ways to leverage AI to improve customer service and ordering as well as point-of-sale material creation in collaboration with its bottling partners,” Coca-Cola said in its earnings release.
Coca-Cola isn’t the only company that’s become keenly interested in AI — or at least said it is — since OpenAI set the craze into motion in late November with the launch of its ChatGPT chatbot. Tech giants Microsoft (MSFT) and Alphabet (GOOGL) have detailed their own strategies as have more unexpected players like Keurig Dr. Pepper's (KDP) Snapple and Chipotle (CMG).
The AI surge has carried some stocks higher, too. At one point this year, C3.ai (AI) stock rose nearly 200% year-to-date. Shares fell on Monday, though, as Wolfe Research downgraded the stock to Underperform from Peer Perform. Wolfe sees “significant risks” to revenue growth for C3.ai, which helps businesses build AI solutions and applications.
"Our analysis of C3.ai's customer count suggests that either renegotiation of contract renewals is taking longer or that churn is increasing," Wolfe research analyst Joshua Tilton wrote in a note to clients on Monday.
The AI stock surges are not in line with fundamentals and are reminiscent of past instances of companies throwing out buzzwords to appease eager investors. Take blockchain, for instance.
In 2018, Amazon flaunted a partnership to make “blockchain more accessible and easier to use for customers.” Despite positioning blockchain as a solution used within its popular Amazon Web Services at the time of the announcement, Amazon executives didn’t mention the phrase “blockchain” once in the company’s most recent earnings call in February.
Then there's the metaverse, the series of virtual worlds talked up by Microsoft, Nvidia (NVDA), and of course, Meta (META). Proponents said it would be the next evolution of the internet, but so far that has been far from reality.
And alongside the metaverse came NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. Coca-Cola, bought in then, too, launching an NFT collection in 2021 to build on its position as "one of the most collectible brands in the world." Two years later, the company didn't exactly hype up NFTs or its collectibles business on its earnings call.
Baird markets strategist Michael Antonelli told Yahoo Finance Live that whether a company is investing in AI is the second most asked question from clients right now (behind the strength of the dollar).
“There’s no great pure play on it,” Antonelli said. “It’s still on the fringes of profit centers. It’s still on the fringes of how we will use it…I’m sure we’ll get a million ETFs and there’ll be a million different marketing pitches around it.”
There are already 30 ETFs on the market related to AI, according to ETFs.com.
Josh is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.
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