Microsoft on Tuesday, revealed that Coca-Cola has entered into a $1.1 billion five-year agreement to leverage its cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.
The collaboration will involve joint experimentation with Azure OpenAI, a service powered by technology from Microsoft-backed startup OpenAI, enabling customers to develop chatbots and other AI solutions within Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform.
This latest deal builds upon Coca-Cola’s previous agreement in 2020, valued at $250 million, to utilize Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure and business software. As part of the new arrangement, Coca-Cola will explore Microsoft’s Copilot offerings to assess how these tools can enhance productivity within the beverage company. Copilot functions as an AI assistant capable of summarizing lengthy email threads and constructing business presentations, among other tasks.
Moreover, the agreement encompasses Coca-Cola’s expansion of its usage of Microsoft’s conventional software, including Dynamics 365, which caters to sales professionals and competes with platforms like Salesforce.
However, Microsoft did not provide a detailed breakdown of the financial allocation within the $1.1 billion deal, regarding the specific contributions from AI services versus traditional cloud software.
