Social Data to Consumer Insights: Artificial Intelligence and Coca-Cola
An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
In computer science, the term Artificial Intelligence, or AI, refers to a computer exhibiting intelligence paralleling that of a human-being.
This includes, but is not limited to, the capabilities of the human mind, learning from experiences, recognizing objects or emotions, making decisions and solving problems. ¹
The first discussions and implementations of artificial intelligence dates back to the 1950s when Alan Turing, a British polymath, discussed it in his paper ⁵. There are many uses for artificial intelligence and many disciplines within, such as programming a computer to solve a puzzle or machine learning, but the example being covered today involves the use of it by multinational beverage corporation, The Coca-Cola Company.
Vending Machines
The Coca-Cola Company began its analytics journey in 2014. Soon into their exploration, they began implementing artificial intelligence into their vending machines. As of today, they are the first and only company to implement such software into vending machines. Their reason for this is simple: to analyze purchasing time, intake, and overall desire of consumers. The implemented artificial intelligence algorithm focused on the transaction pattern of each vending machine and outputted recommendations for each site. Each location was set up in 60 different countries. Based on each location, the algorithm was able to output specific recommendations based on how frequently the machines should be restocked and which flavors to stock it with. After the first trial run, the company saw vast revenue improvements.
By stocking the right products at the right location, Coca-Cola saw a 15% increase in transactions and the need for restocking visits dropped by 18% for the 60 selected machines. ⁷
AI functionality
After implementing the original artificial intelligence into vending machines, Coca-Cola then added a touch-screen display for simplicity and enhanced features. The interface of the display is beautiful and very easy to use. Users have the ability to choose and drink from the selection or mix-and-match flavors. The main purpose of the AI is to collect data consisting of when, where, and how much each drink is selected. From there, Coca-Cola can then customize each vending machine remotely, alter drink selection, and advertise accordingly based on location¹⁰. In addition to selection, the AI also allows for each vending machine to alter its appearance based on where it is located for more appeal.
“The vending machines can even alter their “mood” depending on where they are located — with machines in a shopping mall displaying a colourful, fun persona, those in a gym more focused on achieving performance, and those in a hospital appearing more functional.” ¹³
Ethicality in Vending Machine AI
Although adding artificial intelligence to Coca-Cola’s vending machine was a fantastic play for the franchise level, it raises concern regarding consumer surveillance. The AI implemented vastly helped with sales and distribution, but do the consumers need that?
Micro-Ethical Analysis:
Every consumer is different. Every individual has the ability to desire whichever flavor they want. Assuming a recommendation to remove a flavor from a machine was made, consumers could be hurt as a result. Although the majority of the population in a specific location may desire the original flavor, one person may only drink the cherry flavor, and if was removed, it would hurt not only the physical state of the person but also their emotional well being- whether it’s the one thing they were looking forward to all day or that they absolutely hated every flavor besides cherry. Does it make sense to eliminate one customer and potentially damage them emotionally for nominal gain? It may be worth it for The Coca-Cola Company to view this with The Rights Approach¹⁹ rather than only focusing on maximizing profit.
“Could this decision or situation be damaging to someone or to some group? Does this decision involve a choice between a good and bad alternative, or perhaps between two ‘goods’ or between two ‘bads’ ”? ¹⁹
Macro-Ethical Analysis:
Although the artificial intelligence did not include a camera scanning each individual that walked by, it tracked user consumption. Whether a single vending machine had one or one-thousand customers, it is tracking data without permission- which is unethical in and of itself. Considering a massive amount of data is collected, on the off chance the company is confronted with a breach, a massive amount of consumer data could be revealed. The company sells roughly 2 billion beverages everyday, which means that virtually all of those customers are being infringed of their privacy on a daily basis. Yes it is mostly drink selection, but it also private consumer data at the end of the day.
Coke On and Social Media Surveillance
The vending machine AI implementation was only the first step in Coca-Cola’s analytics journey. Since then, they have created Coke On, a smart-phone application, which allows users to pre-order drinks as well as chat with others. The second step in Coca-Cola’s analytics journey was implementing their AI- encompassed app as well as an algorithm to track product attraction. An interesting aspect about this app adaption is that the AI is able to view conversations between users within the app with their ChatBot²⁰ feature. Similarly to the AI installed in vending machines, this algorithm also pulls data to learn about where certain drinks should be distributed to and how frequently ⁷.
“We’ve also looked at some forms of AI ¹¹ in terms of optimizing how our vending machines are placed and where … to ensure we’re meeting consumer demand based off of patterns and things of that nature. I would say it’s been a lot of trial. The Coke On app has been incredibly successful; it’s approaching 6 million downloads. People are using it with great frequency” (Johnson)¹¹
The next level of Coca-Cola’s artificial intelligence is their image recognition technology on social media. Their goal was to continue to improve their marketing strategy and overall user consumption. This technology targets users who share pictures on social media who could be potential customers. The algorithm looks for specific brand logos posted publicly on social media platforms in an effort to tie popular drinks to a location. From there, the company can then alter their marketing campaign and drink availability based on location in hope to increase user consumption and overall sales.¹³ To accomplish this, Coca-Cola established “37 ‘social media centers’ to collect data and analyze it for insights using the Salesforce platform¹⁵ ” .
Ethical Issues in the Social Media World
Micro-Ethical Analysis:
The purpose of the ChatBot feature was to allow users to converse with each other about what beverages they like and where they are getting them. This is an okay addition, but the underlying reason is not. The implemented AI tracks and store all messages, which in turn invades privacy. The goal was to have another way to see what drinks were the best in what locations, but the conversations could be about anything, potentially something private and personal. This is very unethical because everyone has a right to their privacy, and Coca-Cola’s mission to improve their franchise in turn helps them invade people’s personal space. Just like with the vending machines, Coca-Cola should think about this from The Rights Approach¹⁹ because consumers have a right to their privacy.
Macro-Ethical Analysis:
On a societal level, what would happen if the data stripped through the ChatBot as well as the image recognition technology were to become leaked to the general public or on the flip side- censored? If either outcome were to result, Coca-Cola company will be at fault for their actions against consumers’ private lives. Conversations on the app could involve information not relevant to Coca-Cola beverages while the social media posts could involve other content aside from brand logos that the algorithm would search for. On top of that, both facets track location of users constantly. What would you think about the Coca-Cola Company if your immediate location was leaked as a result of the Coke On app or a good old-fashion social media post?
Conclusion and Possible Solutions
Overall, the inclusion of artificial intelligence in these facets of The Coca-Cola Company is an amazing idea for the future of the brand, but there are multiple ethical dilemmas that arise as a result. In order for these concerns to be dismissed, the company must do one of two things: They must either rework their algorithm to ignore potential infractions of privacy, or include a disclaimer warning consumers. Either would be a great fix because the algorithm change would prevent developers from viewing information they are not supposed to come across, and the disclaimer would warn customers about potential invasions of privacy, preventing any unlawful usage of information and subconsciously putting a filter on users within the interfaces. The Coca-Cola Company must consider their ethical responsibility of the individual and social aspects of their customers before it is too late.
Ethical responsibility … involves more than leading a decent, honest, truthful life, as important as such lives certainly remain. And it involves something much more than making wise choices when such choices suddenly, unexpectedly present themselves. Our moral obligations must … include a willingness to engage others in the difficult work of defining what the crucial choices are that confront technological society and how intelligently to confront them.²⁰
Thankfully, none of the Coca-Cola Company’s long list of struggles¹⁶ consists of ones regarding the artificial intelligence implementations, but it would be best for The Coca-Cola Company to fix it now before issues arise.
References
¹ IBM Cloud Education. “What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?” IBM, www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/what-is-artificial-intelligence.
² Chan, Joei. “How to Find Consumer Insights on Social Media: The Expert Guide.” Linkfluence, www.linkfluence.com/blog/consumer-insights-social-media-guide.
³ Chohan, Sarah. “Consumer Insights From Social Data: A Case Study with Coca Cola.” Linkfluence, www.linkfluence.com/blog/consumer-insights-from-social-data-coca-cola.
⁴ “Coca-Cola Admits It Produces 3m Tonnes of Plastic Packaging a Year.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 14 Mar. 2019, www.theguardian.com/business/2019/mar/14/coca-cola-admits-it-produces-3m-tonnes-of-plastic-packaging-a-year?CMP=fb_gu.
⁵ Anyoha, Rockwell. “The History of Artificial Intelligence.” Science in the News, 23 Apr. 2020, sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/history-artificial-intelligence/.
⁶ Rahman, Was. “Why Coca Cola Uses AI to Create Intelligent Vending Machines.” Medium, Towards Data Science, 27 July 2020, towardsdatascience.com/why-coca-cola-uses-ai-to-create-intelligent-vending-machines-ae97ce952082.
⁷ “The Story of Coca-Cola and Its AI-Powered Vending Machines.” GWPrime, 3 Mar. 2021, www.gwprime.geospatialworld.net/case-study/the-story-of-coca-cola-and-its-ai-powered-vending-machines/.
⁸ Turing, Alan M. “I.-COMPUTING MACHINERY AND INTELLIGENCE.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 Oct. 1950, academic.oup.com/mind/article/LIX/236/433/986238.
⁹ “Alan Turing.” British Mathematician and Logician, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., www.britannica.com/biography/Alan-Turing.
¹⁰ 2021, Digital Food & Beverage. “Coca-Cola Is Using AI to Put Some Fizz in Its Vending Machines.” Digital Food & Beverage 2021, Digital Food & Beverage 2021, 8 Oct. 2019, foodandbeverage.wbresearch.com/blog/coca-cola-artificial-intelligence-ai-omnichannel-strategy.
¹¹ Johnson, Lauren. “Coca-Cola Wants to Use AI Bots to Create Its Ads.” Adweek, Adweek, 28 Feb. 2017, www.adweek.com/performance-marketing/coca-cola-wants-to-use-ai-bots-to-create-its-ads/.
¹² Slavens, Roger. “ME Alumni, Coca-Cola Freestyle Winning Formula.” ME Alumni, Coca-Cola Freestyle Winning Formula | The George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, me.gatech.edu/featured_ccfreestyle.
¹³ Bernard Marr | May 7, 2019 | Big Data In Practice Categories: Machine Learning, et al. “How Coca-Cola Is Using AI to Stay at the Top of the Soft Drinks Market.” AI News, 25 Mar. 2020, artificialintelligence-news.com/2019/05/07/how-coca-cola-is-using-ai-to-stay-at-the-top-of-the-soft-drinks-market/.
¹⁴ Maruti Techlabs. “What Is the Working of Image Recognition and How It Is Used?” Maruti Techlabs, 8 June 2020, marutitech.com/working-image-recognition/#:~:text=Image%20recognition%20refers%20to%20technologies,%2C%20social%20networks%2C%20and%20websites.
¹⁵ Salesforce Team. “Drinking to Future Success.” Salesforce.com, www.salesforce.com/eu/customer-success-stories/coca-cola-enterprises/.
¹⁶ The Coca-Cola Company Struggles with Ethical Crises, harbert.auburn.edu/binaries/documents/center-for-ethical-organizational-cultures/cases/coca-cola.pdf.
- This links to a publication describing all ethical crises that the Coca-Cola Company has faced throughout its lifetime, but does not relate to their implementations of artificial intelligence.
¹⁸ University, Santa Clara. “A Framework for Ethical Decision Making.” Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/a-framework-for-ethical-decision-making/.
¹⁹ Herkert, Joseph R. “Read ‘Emerging Technologies and Ethical Issues in Engineering: Papers from a Workshop’ at NAP.edu.” National Academies Press: OpenBook, www.nap.edu/read/11083/chapter/9.
²⁰ “What Is a Chatbot?” Oracle, www.oracle.com/chatbots/what-is-a-chatbot/.
