PepsiCo Goes Driverless to Boost Supply Chain Capacity

PepsiCo and Gatik AI, Inc. announced on Monday, June 8, a multi-year strategic partnership that will integrate autonomous freight transportation into PepsiCo’s food and beverage supply chain across North America, representing the largest commercial deployment of autonomous freight transportation to date. Gatik’s operations for PepsiCo have already begun in Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas.

“Serving our extensive customer network requires a supply chain that is safe, reliable, and future-ready,” said Jim Farrell, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at PepsiCo. “Gatik is already operating within our networks and brings the autonomous transportation technology, commercial expertise, and scale we need to strengthen service, increase capacity, and move products more consistently for our customers,” the company stated in its official release.

PepsiCo products are consumed more than one billion times each day in over 200 countries and territories around the world—a monumental level of demand. To help meet this need, Gatik’s autonomous trucks will serve approximately 250 PepsiCo distribution points, including Walmart and Dollar General stores.

Deliveries are carried out on both highways and urban roads, a technical distinction that is particularly significant in the autonomous vehicle industry, where many competitors remain limited to interstate corridors. According to Gautam Narang, CEO and co-founder of Gatik, this is evidence that autonomous road freight transportation has reached mainstream adoption, as he stated in an interview with FreightWaves.

PepsiCo and Gatik Take to the Roads with Driverless Deliveries

Gatik’s operation stands out by using fully driverless trucks, with no safety drivers or onboard observers in the cab. Through Gatik Remote Supervisors (GRS), the company provides the necessary human oversight for high-level decision-making; however, no remote driving or teleoperation takes place on public roads. A single operator can oversee multiple trucks simultaneously.

Gatik’s autonomous trucks are designed to perform end-to-end deliveries across highways and urban roads, featuring dynamic route-planning capabilities tailored for complex regional logistics networks involving hundreds of pickup and delivery locations. This allows PepsiCo to adjust route plans in response to daily operational needs, reducing variability, improving on-time performance, and increasing capacity without requiring major changes to existing operations, according to the company’s statement.

Gatik’s first deployment with PepsiCo took place in 2022. Today, Gatik reports more than 98% on-time delivery performance across its operations. PepsiCo and Gatik are focused on increasing capacity where it is needed most: in high-demand regional networks where staffing is difficult and where maintaining stocked shelves is critical for consumers. The companies stated that their goal is “to support PepsiCo’s frontline teams with greater flexibility, consistency, and reliability across the transportation network, while ensuring PepsiCo’s workforce grows alongside the company’s future.”

Gatik is currently able to operate in 29 U.S. states with regulatory frameworks favorable to autonomous vehicles.

The Future of Autonomous Truck Deliveries

In May 2024, Isuzu Motors Limited invested $30 million in Gatik to accelerate the development of autonomous logistics operations across North America. Through this partnership, Level 4 autonomous driving technology began expanding into logistics services.

PepsiCo presents this deployment as a capacity expansion initiative rather than a workforce reduction effort. This marks a shift for enterprise shippers evaluating autonomous freight transportation, with priorities moving from cautious experimentation toward large-scale deployment and operational integration.