PepsiCo says it will be ‘agentic AI-first’ by 2026; Dell and Accenture say reinvent or be replaced

PepsiCo has declared itself on track to become the first global brand to operate as an “agentic AI-first” enterprise by 2026, as some of the world’s biggest corporate leaders outlined how artificial intelligence is reshaping the fundamentals of business at every level. 

Speaking at during the opening keynote of Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2025 conference in San Francisco, executive vice president and chief strategy and transformation officer Athina Kanioura told the audience that PepsiCo’s agentic AI transformation will touch every part of the company, connecting strategy, innovation and operations through Salesforce’s Agentforce 360 platform.

“We will be agentic in every part of the business by the end of 2026,” Kanioura said. 

“We will be the first company to be agentic AI-first by the end of 2026 in every part of the business, connecting all operations, connecting all our processes, the way we think of the business and strategise the business, the way we do innovation, commercialisation, execution and making sure that every employee in the company has a sales and growth mindset. We are all about profitable growth.”

SEE MORE: Salesforce opens the age of ‘Agentic Enterprise'

Kanioura credited Salesforce as a key partner helping embed AI across the organisation, from marketing and sales to customer service and supply chain. 

“We want every employee to do what is possible and reach their full potential,” Kanioura (pictured below) said. “That’s why we have been working with across the whole gamma and spectrum of marketing, sales, service and field, through Slack and even supply chain.”

While PepsiCo is setting the benchmark for full-scale adoption, Dell Technologies chair and CEO Michael Dell used the same stage to issue a stark warning about complacency.

“I think we all woke up around November of 2022 and saw these incredible models, and it really created an opportunity to unlock the power of all the dark data that exists in the world,” Dell said. “If we don’t really get on this, a new company is going to come along and it’s going to put us out of business.”

Dell told his team that the only way to stay ahead of disruption was to become the company that could potentially displace them. 

“We’ve totally reset the business, reimagined the business and I think all companies will have to do that from a competitive standpoint,” he said.

Adding another layer to the discussion, Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture, described AI transformation as a leadership test as much as a technological one.

“We call it reinvention. The first thing you have to do is to say, ‘I’ve got to reinvent everything,’” Sweet said. “Every day I look at how we’re operating as a company, and if I don’t see myself saying, ‘Here’s how we used to do it, and here’s how we’re going to do it,’ and there isn’t a big delta, a big difference, then I know I’m not serving my clients and my employees enough. It’s not just a small thing - it’s about reinventing.”

Together, the three leaders underscored how the agentic era is reshaping business strategy across industries - not just in technology but in consumer goods, infrastructure and professional services. 

From PepsiCo’s operational overhaul to Dell’s reinvention drive and Accenture’s cultural reset, the message from Dreamforce 2025 was clear: in the next wave of AI transformation, every company will have to become the disruptor before it gets disrupted.