Just when you thought the AI buzz couldn’t get any more tiresome, Coca-Cola decided to jump on the bandwagon. The colossal beverage company enlisted artificial intelligence as its advisor in concocting a fresh flavor for its iconic soft drink. Naturally, it didn’t take long for people to put it up to the test, and the findings were rather predictable.
Have you ever closed your eyes, expecting a flavorful explosion, only to receive a mild flick on the nose instead? Sipping on Coke’s Y3000, short for “Year 3000,” is akin to that experience. The tagline “Futuristic Flavored” might lead you to anticipate bold tastes from a prosperous future, but the reality couldn’t be further from it, according to Gizmodo.
Thanks to the wonders of AI, Y3000 is a rehashed version of the same old taste, devoid of any novelty. Unlike the endless variety of Oreo flavors, there’s no compelling reason to pick up Y3000 from the shelf just to see what it tastes like. It’s all about buzzwords, not buzzworthiness.
Despite all the effort, branding gimmicks, and digital logo designs, CokeGPT is about as half-baked as all of the hype surrounding it. In plain terms, Coca-Cola’s Y3000 is not good. Do yourself a favor and avoid it.
But releasing a new soda flavor was not enough for Coca Cola. Y3000 also comes with an AR experience.
The company has been promoting its Y3000 augmented reality, showing how scanning the QR code on the soda bottle takes you to a web app that uses your photos to create an augmented reality glimpse into the year 3000.
What you get, according to Gizmodo, is the same polished imagery that any half-hearted AI image generator could produce. These visuals include hyper-realistic depictions of a utopian city (based on a New York photo) and a portrait of vibrant trinkets (inspired by an office desk photo).
Coca-Cola unveiled this flavor in a press release on September 12, with Oana Vlad, senior director of global strategy, suggesting that the company wanted to “explore the concept of what a Coke from the future might taste like.” If Coke from the future tastes basically non-existent, we’ll stick to the organic pleasures of H2O.
