PepsiCo launches global AI marketing transformation review: Reports

PepsiCo is reportedly conducting a global marketing review focused on artificial intelligence and technology, bringing major agency holding companies and consultancies into competition for an assignment aimed at reshaping how the food and beverage giant approaches marketing.

The review is centred on AI-led marketing transformation rather than a conventional creative or media agency pitch, according to media reports. The process is understood to involve a mix of high-profile agency groups and consulting firms competing to help PepsiCo integrate AI more deeply across its marketing operations.

The move reflects the growing shift among large advertisers from experimenting with generative AI on individual campaigns to examining how the technology can be embedded across broader marketing systems and workflows.

For PepsiCo, which owns brands including Pepsi, Lay’s, Doritos, Gatorade and Quaker, the review could potentially span areas such as content creation, data and analytics, personalisation, automation and the use of AI across marketing processes.

The review also comes at a time when global advertisers reassess traditional agency relationships amid rapid advances in generative and agentic AI. The technology increasingly allows marketers to automate parts of creative production, audience analysis, campaign optimisation and other functions historically handled across multiple agencies and technology partners.

PepsiCo has already been investing in technology-led changes to its marketing operations, including the use of data and AI to improve consumer targeting, creative development and media effectiveness.

The latest review, however, signals a broader examination of how those capabilities should fit together at an enterprise level, and what role agencies and consultancies will play as more marketing functions become AI-enabled.

The development could also prove significant for the agency industry, as large advertisers increasingly evaluate partners not only on creative and media capabilities but on their ability to build and operate AI-powered marketing infrastructure.