Key facts
- Bazooka's CIO is deploying AI and machine learning across operations.
- AI is being used to sharpen demand forecasting and speed up marketing materials.
- A pilot program for agentic AI is underway in the company's supply chain.
- Bazooka is transitioning employees from OpenAI's ChatGPT to Anthropic's Claude.
- AI is being used to facilitate faster recipe development and pull consumer insights.
- Forecasting accuracy has improved to 90% from 60% with machine learning.
Sankar Karuppasamy, the Chief Information Officer at Bazooka, is spearheading the integration of artificial intelligence across the gum maker's operations. Following Bazooka's $700 million sale to Apax Partners in 2023, Karuppasamy now reports directly to CEO Tony Jacobs, reflecting a broader trend of CIOs reporting to the top office. Bazooka is leveraging AI for enhanced demand forecasting, accelerated marketing and packaging material development, and piloting agentic AI within its supply chain. The company is also transitioning its employees from OpenAI's ChatGPT to Anthropic's Claude, aiming for more specialized AI tools and autonomous capabilities. This strategic shift occurs as the food and beverage industry faces headwinds from inflation, a consumer shift to private-label brands, and the impact of GLP-1 drugs on appetite. Despite challenges like seasonality in candy sales, Bazooka has seen a significant improvement in forecasting accuracy, jumping from 60% to 90% with the implementation of machine learning. Karuppasamy's AI strategy is built on three layers: productivity, transforming business workflows, and embracing agentic AI. Priority use cases include recipe development, consumer insight extraction from social media, marketing material acceleration, regulatory compliance for packaging, and enhancing manufacturing software. While Karuppasamy has resisted implementing robotics due to factory size, he is actively pursuing agentic AI for freight management and tariff analysis to autonomously handle complex import logistics and financial impact assessments.