Coca-Cola has been experimenting with limited-edition drinks with mysterious flavours for almost a year and a half; the majority of them feature hazy, futuristic themes.

The most recent one, Coca-Cola Y3000, is appropriate. The only distinction is that it’s meant to taste futuristic. The world’s largest soft drink company, appropriately, employed artificial intelligence to help choose the flavour and design.

It’s crucial for Coca-Cola to maintain consumer interest in Coke, its more than a century-old iconic beverage, especially among younger consumers. It has become more difficult for soda sellers to market their classic brands in recent years as health-conscious consumers have turned away from sugary drinks. Coca-Cola has made an effort to appeal to younger consumers by utilising its Creations platform, which is in charge of limited-edition flavours like Y3000.

Coca-Cola Y3000, like all Creations beverages, is created to taste primarily like Coke with a hint of a different flavour. Coca-Cola used AI to develop the extra flavour note and the bottle design.

By learning which flavours people identify with the future, the company relied on good ol’ fashioned human understanding. Then, according to a spokeswoman, it used AI to assist in determining flavour pairings and profiles. Coca-Cola employed AI-generated graphics to create a mood board for inspiration for the product’s packaging, which looks to hint to a Y2K style with wacky bubbles, pink and blue colouring, and a pixelated logo. Even the aluminium can acknowledges its creators by boldly stating that it was “Co-Created with AI.”

For a short period of time beginning on Tuesday, Y3000, which is available in Canada and the United States in zero and full sugar forms, will be sold for the same price as ordinary Coke.

The Y3000 flavour from Coca-Cola’s Creations platform combines online experiences with tangible goods or events, like with other flavours on the platform. Customers can access the Creations website by scanning a QR code on the Y3000 package, where they can experiment with what the world might look like in 977 years.

In conjunction with the unveiling is a limited-edition capsule collection that will be made available this autumn on the website of luxury streetwear company Ambush. Coca-Cola has previously collaborated on a collection with the clothing line Highsnobiety.

Pixels, dreams, and space

Through Creations, Coca-Cola has introduced a variety of limited edition flavours, most recently Coca-Cola Ultimate, which was created in collaboration with Riot Games, the maker of the multi-player online battle arena game League of Legends and was targeted at gamers.

Prior to Ultimate, there was Starlight, which was space-inspired; Dreamworld, which according to the manufacturer tastes like dreams; and Byte, which is meant to have a pixel-flavor. Additionally, Coca-Cola has collaborated on limited-edition flavours with artists Marshmello and Rosala.

Coca-Cola has not revealed the flavours of these items, with the exception of the Marshmello beverage, which is strawberry and watermelon-flavored rather than marshmallow-flavored.

In a recent interview with CNN, Oana Vlad, senior director of global strategy at Coca-Cola, said, “We’re never really going to answer that question” in a “straightforward” manner. However, “we always maintain that 85 to 90% of the flavour profile is Coke. Then comes that surprise twist of 10 to 15 percent.

CEO James Quincey stated at the Redburn CEO conference the previous year that the flavours are not intended to be offered on an ongoing basis.

He remarked, “They’re more intriguing and engaging, clearly, than a flavour, like a Coke with vanilla or anything. “Testing the boundaries is about engaging with consumers,” the speaker said.