The news: Design leaders from Coca-Cola and Hershey told Philadelphia’s 1682 conference that even legacy consumer packaged goods (CPG) are rethinking how they show up in stores, but not through new formats or shelf designs. Instead, they argued the next retail revolution is about using data, creativity, and AI to make shopping experiences feel personal and purposeful.

AI on the shelf—and beyond: Benny Lee, Coca-Cola senior design manager for technology partnerships, described his company's evolution as a shift from “selling beverages” to “crafting experiences.” The beverage giant now serves 2.2 billion drinks daily—“2.2 billion opportunities to engage,” as Lee put it. That scale gives retail partners a live testing ground for blending data, design, and in-store interaction.

Coca-Cola’s Creations series exemplifies this approach. AI helps co-create limited-time flavors like Y3000, designed to “taste like the future.” The release drew 5 billion global impressions—not for the flavor itself, but for the experience behind it. Packaging, digital activations, and displays used AI-generated imagery to turn consumer data into visual storytelling.

The same idea underpins Coke’s AI-powered design system, which builds brand guidelines directly into creative workflows. It lets agencies and retail partners create localized assets faster while keeping every bottle, display, and shelf talker on brand. For retailers, that means quicker customization and more unified cross-channel campaigns.

Much of Coca-Cola’s AI experimentation—like its interactive, multilingual Create Real Magic Santa—has been digital, but Lee sees vast retail potential. “AI can take the precision we use in design and apply it to in-store experiences,” he said. “Imagine every display, cooler, or screen reacting to consumers in real time.”

Retail as a learning lab: At Hershey’s, physical retail isn’t just a sales channel—it’s a data engine.

Andy Hunt, manager of applied digital innovation, said the candy company is working to “close the gap between physical and digital” by embedding data into every stage of retail. Its “Help Enhance” program sends office staff to major partners like Walmart, Kroger, and Costco during key seasons to set up displays and gather real-world insights.

“The feedback we get from the aisle shapes everything,” Hunt said. “Understanding how consumers shop in-store is as important as what happens online.” That firsthand insight feeds Hershey’s retail media and measurement strategy, helping standardize KPIs across platforms like Google, Meta, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk. The result: true omnichannel consistency, with every campaign—digital or in-store—anchored to the same audience and performance metrics.

Hunt also underscored the need for longer-running, always-on retail media investments. “Six-week bursts are inefficient,” he said. “Retailers and brands need campaigns that evolve continuously, adjusting to real-time data rather than resetting every quarter.”

These insights spotlight ways that retailers can keep pace.

Key takeaways for retailers:

• AI is operational infrastructure, not an add-on. Expect brands to demand faster creative localization, consistent measurement, and integrated asset delivery, especially as adoption of genAI, currently at 74% among consumer goods leaders, keeps rising.
• Physical experiences are becoming programmable. Digital signage, vending, and packaging are evolving into media surfaces guided by data and generative design.
• Long-term collaboration will replace campaign churn. As Hunt noted, sustained presence and iterative learning yield better ROI than one-off bursts.

The store of the near future will have physical spaces that are as dynamic and data-driven as digital ones. Coca-Cola’s AI design systems give retailers brand assets that adapt in real time, while Hershey’s builds data pipelines linking the shelf to the cloud. Yet they stressed that human creativity drives this evolution. “AI isn’t creative—you are,” Lee said. “It’s just a new tool for telling stories.” In retail, that means every display, screen, and activation should tell a story that feels not automated, but alive.