Coca-Cola releases new flavor using AI-generated recipe

• Coca-Cola created a new recipe using AI named the Y3000 Zero Sugar and the taste has left people divided
• Many described the drink as a ‘cherry cola mixed with cotton candy’
• The Y3000 is available in the United States, Canada , China , Europe and Africa

Coke – which is no stranger to bad marketing moves over its flavor – is apparently hoping on the AI bandwagon and asking consumers to try a new computer-generated flavor called Y3000 Zero Sugar.

The soda giant explains that the new drink has been built through ‘human and artificial intelligence by understanding how fans envision the future through emotions, aspirations, colors, flavors and more’.

The Y3000 is available in the United States, Canada, China, Europe and Africa. Released on September 12 as a limited edition flavor, Coca-Cola is now inviting people to taste test the futuristic soda. 

But, unscientific taste tests have left customers divided on the whether the new Coke hits the spot.  

‘It tastes like cherry cola mixed with cotton candy,’ a taster named Michael said. ‘It’s pretty good.’

Bubble enthusiast Emmanuel told Fox News: ‘I think AI-generated Coke is better than human-tried and proven Coca-Cola. This has something in it that will make me start drinking Coca-Cola.’

But many soda fanatics such as Kaycee and Mitra disagreed and said they could not figure out the new taste and preferred the original recipe.

‘I can’t identify the specific flavor. Kind of like cotton candy mixed with Coke,’ Kaycee told the outlet. While, Mitra described it as ‘tasting like medicine.’

Another sugary potion lover named Will went into detail about the futuristic drink’s flavor. 

‘I’m feeling a little bit of strawberry, some island flavors, like a hint of papaya, a little guava in there, maybe like a hint of a mango,’ he said. ‘I’ll give it a good 8.5 out of 10, only because I’m looking forward to more, and see what they can do with Sprite next.’

The Coca-Cola logo on the Y3000 bottle is made of ‘fluid dot clusters that merge to represent the human connections of our future planet.’ 

Customers can scan a QR code on the bottle to open a website that uses the AI model Stable Diffusion to turn photos of their surroundings into images with a similar color scheme and sci-fi aesthetics. In these images, the future looks sleek and very pink 

 ‘We hope that Coca‑Cola will still be as relevant and refreshing in the year 3000 as it is today, so we challenged ourselves to explore the concept of what a Coke from the future might taste like—and what kind of experiences would a Coke from the future unlock?’ Oana Vlad, Senior Director, Global Strategy of The Coca‑Cola Company said.

‘The ‘Real Magic’ brand platform celebrates unexpected connections that make the ordinary extraordinary, so we intentionally brought human intelligence and AI together for an uplifting expression of what Coca‑Cola believes tomorrow will bring.’

While the Y3000 may have people divided on its taste during initial testing, Coca-Cola has not had a smooth run with all of its futuristic products. 

A ‘new’ Coke formula was launched by the company in April 1985 and was set to replace the original formula, 99 years after its launch. 

But after nearly 1,500 complaint calls started coming in daily at the Coca-Cola office and their 800-GET-COKE phone line, the company was forced to bring back the original recipe less than 100 days later. 

The move has been called one of the worst marketing decisions of all time. The switch to ‘new’ Coke still lives on in infamy even decades later.  

Then chairman and chief executive officer Roberto Goizueta said in 1995 at a special employee event honoring the 10-year anniversary of ‘new Coke’: ‘We set out to change the dynamics of sugar colas in the United States, and we did exactly that — albeit not in the way we had planned.’

Now, the question remains if Y3000 will last longer than ‘new’ Coke.