PepsiCo, a global leader in convenient foods and beverages with a presence in more than 200 countries and regions, continues to drive transformation through data and AI across its expansive operations. With over 23 flagship brands, the company’s scale demands robust digital infrastructure, operational intelligence, and innovation at speed.

In this final installment of CDO Magazine’s three-part conversation, Amlan Maitra, SVP and Head of Enterprise Data at PepsiCo, speaks with Clyde Gillard, North American AI GTM Leader at HPE, about the tangible value AI is starting to deliver across the enterprise.

While part 1 explored PepsiCo’s enterprise data foundation and part 2 examined AI use cases and the deployment of AI agents, this segment focuses on business outcomes, the future potential of agentic AI, and the evolving skills landscape for tomorrow’s workforce.

Edited Excerpts

Q: Can you share a specific success story, an example where this journey through AI and data has delivered real business value at PepsiCo?

We’re at the same stage many large corporations are, looking across our entire value chain to understand how AI can augment and enable our vision. One area where we’re starting to see real, measurable value is reporting and insights.

Like most large organizations, we have thousands of reports, many of which go unused. So we’re shifting away from static reporting toward what we call “dialoguing with data.” Think of it as AI for BI — using conversational chatbots on top of highly curated, cross-functional data.

We’ve built semantic layers with strong metadata, glossaries, lineage, and ontologies. Now, instead of creating bespoke reports that see limited use, business users can ask questions in natural language and get meaningful insights instantly.

This new paradigm is gaining traction across all functional areas—supply chain, consumer, commercial, and more. We’re seeing real demand from business partners, and the pull is strong. This kind of capability is beginning to make a tangible impact.

Q: Looking ahead, how do you see this evolving? What’s your perspective on agentic AI and how it might reshape the business?

The pace of innovation in this space is remarkable — things change every couple of weeks, and I’m constantly trying to absorb the latest developments. We’re progressing from traditional or narrow AI to generative AI, where the focus has largely been on driving efficiency. Now, with agentic AI, the game is changing.

Agentic AI frameworks introduce autonomous agents that can perceive, decide, act, and even interact with other agents in a broader ecosystem. In manufacturing and warehousing, for instance, this will evolve into physical AI — intelligent, autonomous robots and systems. Think self-driving vehicles or smart factory robotics. We’re heading toward an ecosystem of intelligent systems collaborating seamlessly.

In the near future, agentic AI will significantly boost operational efficiency. More importantly, it will allow us to reimagine business processes and workflows entirely, rethinking them from the ground up. That could lead to entirely new business models.

But this also brings into question what the employee of the future looks like. When the threshold for knowledge is lowered, the differentiator will be people who can orchestrate the right set of agents in the right workflows. That’s the emerging skill set we’ll need.

In the next two to three years, this could become a reality. However, none of this is possible without good data. For companies to be AI-ready and truly AI-differentiated, they must first be data-ready and data-mature. That’s the prerequisite for unlocking real AI value.

CDO Magazine appreciates Amlan Maitra for sharing his insights with our global community.