Global brewing giant Mahou San Miguel has integrated artificial intelligence across its entire value chain, deploying generative tools to nearly 40% of its eligible workforce as part of a strategic digital transformation that began in 2019, according to Guillermo Arrieta, the company’s general director of Transformation and Systems.
Scaling AI Across the Supply Chain and Operations
Mahou San Miguel is utilizing data and artificial intelligence to optimize daily operations, ranging from industrial manufacturing to logistics and inventory management. According to Arrieta, the company established a dedicated data and AI team in 2019 to prioritize the technology. By late 2023, the brewer began issuing software licenses for tools like ChatGPT and Copilot based on specific employee roles. Today, more than 600 workers are active users, and employees have independently built numerous custom AI agents.
Operational integration has yielded measurable savings. According to company data shared by Arrieta, real-time monitoring connects incoming barley truck deliveries with processing events to uncover correlations with product loss. This capability has generated a 15% reduction in production waste. Additionally, a logistics orchestration pilot project has delivered a 10% efficiency gain in transport costs, while industrial maintenance agents now guide on-site operators along production lines. Overall, these technical optimizations have produced significant total operational savings.
Targeted Commercial Retention and Marketing Digital Twins
Beyond the factory floor, Mahou San Miguel applies predictive analytics to monitor commercial relationships and prevent customer churn in the hospitality sector. According to Arrieta, a churn-detection model has been running for four years. If the system registers a decline in order volume or the cessation of a specific product reference, it triggers an immediate digital alert for commercial managers at the start of their workday, allowing them to intervene and retain client accounts.
In marketing, the company uses a “digital twin” model for each of its brands to process real-time market insights, market share metrics, pricing elasticity, and social media engagement. Layered specialized AI models evaluate creative agency submissions against brand guidelines—checking elements such as color tones and slogan tone of voice—before human brand managers review the output. The technology is also deployed to generate visual assets for advertising campaigns. Arrieta stated that the company plans to increase its technology investment through 2027.