Yum Brands last year launched personalized marketing campaigns motivated by artificial intelligence, teasing a “IA factory“This uses consumer data to allow its digital ecosystem. Last month, the company shared some early results from the interior of the factory, which helped send more than 200 million communications generated by the AI which were up to five times more effective compared to traditional approaches.
“Throughout the organization, AI overallimates our marketing,” said Yum CEO David Gibbs, on the company Call for quarters 2025. “It is not only marketing evolution, it’s a revolution, and we just have to start.”
To participate in this revolution, Yum worked to build a fundamental framework for AI, both in parent society and in subsidiary brands such as Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut. At the heart of this foundation is an effort of several years to exploit the massive quantities of first part data, which is now centralized in a consumer data program called Red360. Yum has more than 140 million highly qualified and authorized names – with transactions history – in RED360, of which about half come from Taco Bell.
“We believe that one of our strongest competitive advantages is our scale, and we think it appears if you look at all our brands,” said Cameron Davies, data director at Yum, in an interview.
The overall YUM AI strategy is focused on three pillars of the presence of technology: in interactions with consumers (in communications and the Drive-Thru, for example), as part of the case of the company of software solutions (which feed the inventory and planning) and operations above stores. Davies compared the use of executive AI as analogous to the embrace of smartphones during a previous time marked by pages and blackberry devices.
“You cannot imagine life without [your smartphone]And we believe that this is where General AI finds it, “said the executive about technology that is already used to push productivity at the level of the company.
Live más with ai
Yum considers marketing efforts focused on AI as a means of further optimizing a digital ecosystem which has represented 57% of the sales mixture for the company. Separation of Taco Bell, digital represented 41% of the mixture in T2 2025 – a record for the brand. During this period, the efforts fueled by AI have contributed to increasing the frequency of the CRM and the recommendations integrated in Taco Bell, by details shared by Yum. In other words, the digital success of Taco Bell has just worked in close partnership with his parent company and really kissing technology.
“One of the biggest gaps for brands is to have capacities, but not necessarily really prepared to drive and defend change,” said Dane Mathews, digital and technology chief at Taco Bell. “Technology will feed the relationships that consumers have with brands, end.”
Taco Bell has worked to build technologies that meet a fervent consumer base that seeks to live, to be a part and amplify the brand. The addition of Yum AI infrastructure and technological tools to this approach accelerates the brand’s learning as it seems to communicate in a relevant way on one by one.
“AI helps us do this and helps us progress,” said Mathews. “Then we simply pass through the surfaces, through the channels, be it applications, a kiosk or a driving service … Trying to strengthen and develop relationships with our fans.”
At Taco Bell, AI considered as a way to stimulate business needs – and not as a technology to be used because it is worthy of buzz among marketing specialists and managers. The brand uses technology on “Nitty-Gritty” work supervised by brand marketing specialists and digital marketing teams. For example, AI begins to fuel the workflow of the brand’s content, as well as helping creative teams to “develop the opening” of their work, said Mathews. But really unlocking the full potential of AI requires a transformation.
“If it will really change everything, it means that all marketing must change.
To help cause this change, Taco Bell and Yum worked to abandon hypotheses through tests and experimentation. AI allows the company to test data sets in customer communications and to quickly integrate learning into its models. From there, Yum has the advantage of being able to apply learning and models through its wallet.
“Only marketing specialists who remain with [AI] That … can structure their learning around experimentation are those that will win, “said Mathews.” This is the revealing sign of a transformation that occurs on a large scale. “
Internal or not internally
In recent years, Miam has aggressively acquired And in partnership With companies that make up its digital ecosystem and fueled by AI. Determine whether it is necessary to use internal or not technology has been activated by a filter that assesses if there is an existing technology that can do the work better than Yum could internally, if Yum does something unique with technology and can do the work faster and cheaper.
For example, Yum has an internal consumer intelligence engine that uses RED360 data to customize the sealing of digital kiosks; It was cheaper and faster for Yum to manage this internally. But on the personalization efforts of emails and SMS, Yum has teamed up with Offit, a company recently acquired by the Braze client engagement platform, because Offfit had already built a strengthening engine that he would take in Yum for several years to build alone.
This agnostic approach to the internal or external partnership has enabled Yum and its marks to solve commercial problems and to focus on a steering wheel powered by AI which revolves around data, algorithms and experiences.
“It is not only a question of AI, it is not only a question of digital. It is a question of how it all works with good food and good operations,” said Davies. “This is why we use it. It is not a question of being simply cool with Gen AI – this is the way in which this is part of the global strategy.”
