Coca-Cola, Walmart Embrace New AI-Savvy CEOs As Retail Giants Brace For 'Huge New Shift'

• Both retail giants have adopted AI in a host of areas, such as product marketing and development, and customer engagement, in the past year.
• Coca-Cola’s James Quincey is stepping down at the end of this month and will be succeeded by the company’s chief operating officer.
• KO and WMT stocks have bucked the broader market selloff in the first quarter.

Bosses at top retailers are stepping aside in favor of leaders they believe are better equipped to navigate the shift to artificial intelligence as the industry remaps around the new technology.

Outgoing Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday that his decision to step down and the appointment of COO Henrique Braun as the next chief executive were influenced by organizational and market shifts.

“In a pre-AI, a pre-gen-AI mode, we made a lot of progress. But now there’s a huge new shift coming along,” Quincey said, adding that the beverage giant needed “someone with the energy to pursue a completely new transformation of the enterprise.” Braun starts in his new role at the end of this month. 

Former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon made similar comments just before he handed over the reins to John Furner, who was previously head of Walmart U.S. “With what’s happening with AI, I could start this next big set of transformations with AI, but I couldn’t finish,” McMillon told CNBC in December.

“About a year ago, I really started feeling like this next run, you could see what agentic commerce was going to look like, the vision for AI shopping, and I started thinking about everything that needs to happen over the next few years, and it really caused me to think that now was the right time [to step down],” he had said.

Notably, Walmart also moved its shares from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq that month, which McMillon said was symbolic of the progress the company has made in technology.

How Are Coca-Cola And Walmart Deploying AI?

Coca-Cola is using AI across marketing, product development and operations – deploying generative AI for campaigns (like AI-created holiday ads and tools such as “Fizzion”), using data models to design new flavors and packaging, and leveraging partnerships like Microsoft Azure OpenAI to optimize supply chains and improve crop resilience.

Walmart has rolled out AI shopping assistants like “Sparky” and the “Wally” bot for merchants, while also deploying AI across personalized recommendations, demand forecasting, inventory management, and frontline tools such as real-time translation and task automation.

KO, WMT Stock Defensive In Volatile Market

The benchmark S&P 500 has had a challenging run this year (down 5.4%), as investors rotated out of once high-flying tech and software stocks, with the more recent decline tied to the U.S.-Iran war disrupting Middle East trade and driving oil prices sharply higher.

Like their consumer and retail peers, KO and WMT have bucked the broader trend, with Coca-Cola shares up 7.6% year to date and Walmart gaining 10%. As of late Thursday, Stocktwits sentiment stood at ‘neutral’ for KO and ‘bearish’ for WMT.

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.

Read Next: $500B Wiped From Big Tech In One Day As Iran War Fears Weigh: Why NVDA, MSFT, META Are Not ‘Safe Haven’ Now