Coca-Cola, the Atlanta-headquartered beverage giant, is using artificial intelligence and scenario modeling tools to guide marketing and commercial investment decisions, executives said during a May 29 session at Gartner's 2026 Finance Symposium, CFO Dive reported June 2.
At the center of the effort is Fuel Light 360, a proprietary platform the Fulton County company built to help teams evaluate potential marketing investments. Shelley Kench, Coca-Cola's global resource allocation lead, said past decisions were slowed by fragmented analysis, with different teams interpreting the same data in different ways. Meetings often focused on coordinating follow-ups and additional deep dives, she said, and by the time teams produced an answer, the market had moved.
Kench described a scenario in which the company faced increased advertising pressure from a competitor in the sugar-free soda category. Previously, teams might have debated whether to respond with television, digital media, or in-store promotions without a shared framework. Fuel Light 360 now lets teams model investment scenarios in real time, shifting discussions from reconciling data toward making choices.
Noah Museles, a partner at Bain & Company, which supported the transformation, said the decision cycle dropped from roughly two weeks of follow-up analysis to a single one-hour meeting. CFO John Murphy has described improved resource allocation as a potential new competitive advantage for the business, telling analysts in February the tool helps the company identify which investments deliver the most value.
Source: CFO Dive -- https://www.cfodive.com/news/inside-coca-colas-use-ai-marketing-spend-agility/821679/