Suntory Oceania expands AI investment and explores SAP automation
The beverage maker has moved about 90% of its datasets to Databricks and is expanding access to Copilot Pro.
By Quang Dinh
Suntory Oceania is investing in Databricks and Copilot Pro while assessing AI agents within its SAP systems, digital and IT director Matt Dixon said at the SAP NOW AI Tour in Sydney.
Dixon said about 90 per cent of the company’s datasets, roughly 40, had been transferred from older platforms to Databricks over two years. The platform provides a central foundation for developing AI tools, with customer experience systems among the next areas being considered.
The beverage maker is also expanding Copilot Pro use among employees it expects will benefit most. Dixon said the company would continue that expansion while ensuring staff across the business could access the standard Copilot version.
For AI agents, Dixon said Suntory Oceania wanted to assess capabilities native to its core SAP environment before considering alternatives pitched by vendors. That evaluation is under way.
One potential application is responding to unexpected changes in beverage demand. Dixon described a future process in which an agent could assess demand signals, determine inventory adjustments and create a stock transfer order. Human involvement might be limited to checking the agent’s reasoning and approving the order.
Those tasks currently require manual planning and inventory work, Dixon said. He envisaged a faster response rather than a real-time process, with customer sales data feeding demand-planning algorithms.
