Caroline O’Brien, GM Data & AI at Coles Group, was the guest speaker at the Drinks Association’s Network Breakfast on Thursday, 15 October. Held at the Fullteron Hotel, MC’d by Kerry Appathurai, LION’s Executive General Manager - Sales and Customer, and attended by a very engaged industry audience, Caroline spoke about AI, agents, the future of retail and what it all means for suppliers. Over her career, Caroline has worked in AI research, led data teams and is now leading Coles’ AI transformation, giving her insights from both the technical and business sides of AI.
Value comes from the whole process
Caroline traced the evolution of AI from predicting and optimising through to generative AI with the power to create content and now agentic AI that can act on a business’ behalf. Coles has used AI for around a decade, with the focus now on connecting capability across the value chain rather than running isolated projects.
That only works when there is a focus on the entire process. Coles has seen this with AI coding tools. Developers can now write code faster but if testing doesn’t match the speed, a bottleneck forms. “You have to look at that end-to-end process and make sure you’re uplifting every single part,” Caroline said.
“You can’t just give your team members ChatGPT and expect them to change the way they work,” she added. Coles connects its staff AI tools to the documents and systems people already use so the tools fit into the way work actually gets done.
AI is only as good as the data behind it
Caroline emphasised that trusted, connected data is fundamental to unlocking AI's potential. For retailers and suppliers, high-quality product information is becoming increasingly important, particularly as consumers begin using AI assistants to discover, compare and select products. Having consistent, reliable data across the value chain will be critical to making these experiences work at scale.
Oversight and controls
“We have to bake in as much governance as possible as the technology becomes more pervasive, with more decision authority,” Caroline said. Every extra step of authority given to AI needs extra controls. Can an agent only read emails or can it send emails on your behalf? Can it suggest code or push that code live itself? She said the challenge is that the tools to manage this lag behind the AI so businesses are building their own.
Caroline cautioned against measuring AI progress by the number of tools or agents deployed. Instead, the focus should be on identifying where AI creates meaningful business value, building the right controls and scaling what works. As AI takes on greater decision-making authority, governance and oversight become increasingly important.
Coles Liquor is a Retail Partner of the Drinks Association.