How HEINEKEN is brewing innovation with AI

Beer giant HEINEKEN is brewing innovation with artificial intelligence (AI). AI is no longer just a buzzword or a tool for corporate side projects. For many businesses, it’s becoming a central part of how they operate and grow.

In the consumer goods sector, some companies are going beyond small-scale experiments to embed AI deep into their day-to-day operations – and HEINEKEN is a prime example. The global brewer is using AI not just to make things more efficient, but to rethink how it does business altogether.

Here, we take a look at how HEINEKEN is embedding AI into the fabric of its business, exploring the company’s investment in its new Global Generative AI Lab, the suite of AI products already driving measurable results and the internal culture supporting experimentation, collaboration and ethical technology deployment.

Strategic investment in AI

While many organizations are still experimenting with AI at the periphery of operations, HEINEKEN has placed it at the center of its long-term digital vision. The company’s launch of a Global Generative AI Lab in Singapore marked a major step forward in that journey.

The lab, developed alongside AI Singapore, serves as a global innovation hub where the company can experiment freely with AI. The goal is straightforward: build generative AI solutions that can easily scale up across key areas of the business – whether it’s automating marketing tasks, improving financial processes, boosting customer support or making internal knowledge easier to access.

Ronald den Elzen, chief digital and technology officer at HEINEKEN, describes the lab as “a significant milestone,” highlighting the company’s commitment to growth, efficiency and innovation through advanced AI.

By the end of 2025, HEINEKEN aims to build a dedicated team of experts combining internal digital specialists with external talent from AI Singapore. “By taking this significant step, HEINEKEN is strategically positioning ourselves for a resilient and thriving future,” says Kenneth Choo, managing director for APAC, pointing to Singapore’s innovation ecosystem as an ideal environment for the initiative.

Building business value through AI

HEINEKEN’s move into generative AI is part of a broader strategy that’s already delivering real value across its operations. The company blends advanced AI technology with human insight, creating practical and responsible solutions designed for global use.

These solutions go beyond automating routine tasks; they actively support faster and smarter decision-making across sales, marketing and operations teams.

Among the company’s suite of AI-powered tools is AIDDA (Artificial Intelligence Data-Driven Advisor), which supports sales representatives by recommending optimal actions based on customer data. By 2024, AIDDA had scaled to eight markets, supporting nearly half a million customer interactions daily.

Other tools focus on driving customer engagement and revenue growth. The Product Recommender, now live in seven markets, analyzes user behavior and preferences to deliver personalized recommendations. 

Meanwhile, MERCURY, an AI-driven marketing spend optimizer, is helping to deliver incremental gross profit across three markets, while Promo Advisor is enabling teams to simulate, plan and assess promotional campaigns for maximum ROI.

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Generative AI pilots

HEINEKEN has also been testing a range of generative AI tools, many of which are already showing strong potential. One example is Hoppy, a generative AI chatbot designed to help finance teams navigate internal standards and processes by pulling information from across the company’s systems to streamline daily workflows.

For marketing teams, the Knowledge and Insights Management platform (KIM) plays a similar role. It brings together consumer and market data in one place, making it easier for teams to access insights and make informed decisions quickly.

Another tool, HeiFi, taps into a decade’s worth of consumer-packaged goods data to provide strategic insights to senior leaders.

Human-AI collaboration

While HEINEKEN’s AI strategy is often associated with its commercial frontlines, it also extends to internal corporate functions. Ludmila Todorovska, head of global digital and technology, leads digital transformation in HR, legal and corporate affairs. Her team recently worked with Microsoft to introduce Copilot – a generative AI tool – into internal communication workflows.

In practical terms, this meant identifying common use cases in internal and external communications and showing how generative AI could speed up tasks without sacrificing quality. “We prepared like three or four use cases... and then we showed them how they can utilize the technology in order to be faster, better,” Todorovska explains. The response was overwhelmingly positive, showing just how powerful AI can be when tailored to specific functions.

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Fostering innovation – and learning from failure

Much of HEINEKEN’s progress with digital transformation comes down to its culture of innovation. The company actively encourages experimentation and celebrates it, even when things don’t go to plan.

Every year, HEINEKEN hosts internal awards recognizing standout initiatives. The “#CoolShit” category spotlights impressive uses of technology, while “Backups” acknowledges teams who take risks, make mistakes and share their learnings. One recent winner in the latter category was a team that developed an agentic AI system that failed on its original tech stack and had to be completely rebuilt. Rather than framing this as a failure, the company celebrated the pivot and the resilience of the team involved.

By normalizing this kind of trial-and-error approach, HEINEKEN is cultivating a culture where innovation is not only accepted but expected.

Building AI on a foundation of data

At the heart of HEINEKEN’s AI success is a strong data foundation. Its DataPrime platform now connects more than 70 operating companies, helping ensure that data across the business is consistent, reliable and easy to access.

“Building on this, we advanced our data and AI capabilities in 2024, embedding AI-driven products across our operations and rolling out literacy programs to ensure adoption,” the company states in its annual report.

Responsible, customer-centric AI

Technical innovation is only part of the story; HEINEKEN puts a strong emphasis on using AI responsibly. Its Code of Business Conduct and dedicated AI Ethics Principles help guide how the technology is used, and those guidelines are regularly updated to keep up with the pace of change.

The company also places a premium on usability. According to Andrea Diebold, head of global analytics products, the goal is to ensure that AI tools are “seamlessly integrated into operations and widely adopted by end-users.” This, she says, is the key to moving from “everyday AI” to “game-changing AI”.

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Brewing a smarter future

HEINEKEN’s journey with AI shows how even long-established companies can successfully embrace new technology and make it work at scale. By combining in-house innovation with strategic partnerships – and staying grounded in its core values – the company is not just changing how it runs day to day, but also how it approaches growth, talent and long-term resilience.

Its collaboration with AI Singapore offers a prime example of how public-private partnerships can help accelerate meaningful, practical innovation. As Laurence Liew, director of AI innovation at AI Singapore, puts it: “By combining HEINEKEN’s industry expertise with AI Singapore’s cutting-edge AI capabilities and talent, we are creating a powerful model for how private and public sector collaboration can drive innovative solutions with real-world impact.”

Whether it’s tailoring product recommendations, deploying generative AI chatbots or supporting high-level decision-making, HEINEKEN is showing how a global business can use AI to drive real innovation, not just automation. It’s setting a template for how established companies can lead the way in using technology to evolve and stay competitive.