16 Sep 2023 Coca-Cola’s AI-generated soda tastes like marketing

AI is just about everywhere lately, but nobody expected it to be used as a salvo in the ongoing cola wars. Coca-Cola, however, has other plans, as it just launched a new flavour co-created by artificial intelligence.

“Inspired by the timelessness of Coca-Cola, we want to celebrate everyone’s idea of what the future might look like,” Coca-Cola’s senior director of global strategy Oana Vlad said in a press release.

“With the help of AI-powered technology, Coca-Cola Y3000 Zero Sugar imagines how a Coca-Cola from the future could taste and introduces innovative experiences to explore the future.”

It’s available for a limited time in both regular and zero sugar varieties. Coke hasn’t released any information as to how it actually tastes, but testers describe it as resembling a raspberry slushy.

The company did release info on the creation process. It all started with researchers collecting flavour preferences from consumers, looking for trends to understand what the “future tastes like.”

Next, this data was fed into a proprietary artificial intelligence system to help create the flavour profile. Before you know it, a new baby soda was born.

Coke also tasked AI to help design the artwork on the slim can. The cans have a beachy, neon-purple vibe. There are also traditionally-sized bottles filled with the futuristic fluid.

Y3000 is described as a limited edition flavour, but Coke hasn’t said when the soda would head to the scrapheap to join other futuristic foods, like Dippin’ Dots freeze-dried ice cream and the transparent (and awful) Crystal Pepsi.

It should stick around through the fall, though, as Coca-Cola also announced a partnership with luxury streetwear brand Ambush to release a Y3000-themed clothing collection later in the season.

Source: Coca-Cola, CNBC