ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

“Digitalization in general and AI specifically will be an important part of ongoing productivity savings.” – Dolf van den Brink – Heineken International, CEO

When Dolf van den Brink articulated his conviction that “digitalization in general and AI specifically will be an important part of ongoing productivity savings,” he was speaking from a position of hard-won experience navigating one of the beverage industry’s most challenging periods. As CEO of Heineken, van den Brink has spent nearly six years steering the world’s largest brewing company through unprecedented disruption-from pandemic-induced market collapse to shifting consumer preferences and intensifying competitive pressures. His statement reflects not merely technological optimism, but a pragmatic assessment of survival and growth in an industry facing structural headwinds.

The Context: Crisis as Catalyst for Transformation

Van den Brink assumed the CEO role in June 2020, at precisely the moment when COVID-19 had devastated global beer markets. Hospitality venues shuttered, on-premise consumption evaporated, and the industry faced existential questions about its future. Rather than merely weathering the storm, van den Brink seized the opportunity to fundamentally reimagine Heineken’s operating model. He introduced the EverGreen strategy-first EverGreen 2025, then the more ambitious EverGreen 2030-which positioned technological innovation and operational efficiency as central pillars of the company’s response to market contraction.

The urgency behind van den Brink’s emphasis on digitalization and AI becomes clearer when examining the commercial realities he confronted. Heineken announced plans to cut up to 6,000 jobs-approximately 7% of its global workforce-over two years as beer demand continued to slow. This was not a temporary adjustment but a structural response to a market that had fundamentally changed. Consumer preferences were shifting towards premium products, health-conscious alternatives, and experiences rather than volume consumption. Simultaneously, the company’s share price declined by approximately 20% during his tenure, reflecting investor concerns about the company’s ability to navigate these transitions.

In this context, van den Brink’s focus on digitalization and AI represented a strategic imperative: how to maintain profitability and competitiveness whilst reducing headcount and adapting to lower overall demand. Technology became the mechanism through which Heineken could do more with less-automating routine processes, optimising supply chains, enhancing decision-making through data analytics, and improving customer engagement through digital channels.

The Intellectual Foundations: Productivity Theory and Digital Transformation

Van den Brink’s conviction about AI and digitalization as productivity drivers aligns with broader economic theory and business practice that has evolved significantly over the past two decades. The intellectual foundations for this perspective rest on several key theorists and frameworks:

Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee, economists at MIT, have been among the most influential voices articulating how digital technologies and artificial intelligence drive productivity gains. In their seminal work “The Second Machine Age” (2014) and subsequent research, they documented how digital technologies create exponential rather than linear improvements in productivity. Unlike previous waves of mechanisation that primarily affected manual labour, digital technologies and AI can augment cognitive work-the domain where knowledge workers, managers, and professionals operate. Brynjolfsson and McAfee’s research demonstrated that organisations investing heavily in digital transformation whilst simultaneously restructuring their workforce around these technologies achieved the highest productivity gains. This framework directly informed how leading industrial companies, including brewers, approached their digital strategies.

Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, popularised the concept of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” or Industry 4.0, which emphasises the convergence of digital, physical, and biological technologies. Schwab’s framework highlighted how AI, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and advanced analytics would fundamentally reshape manufacturing and supply chain operations. For a company like Heineken, with complex global operations spanning brewing, distribution, logistics, and retail engagement, Industry 4.0 principles offered a comprehensive roadmap for modernisation. Smart factories, predictive maintenance, demand forecasting powered by machine learning, and automated quality control became not futuristic concepts but immediate operational imperatives.

Michael E. Porter, the Harvard strategist, developed the concept of “competitive advantage” through operational excellence and differentiation. Porter’s framework suggested that in mature industries facing commoditisation pressures-precisely Heineken’s situation in many markets-companies must pursue operational excellence through technology adoption. Porter’s later work on digital strategy emphasised that technology adoption was not merely about cost reduction but about fundamentally reimagining value chains. This intellectual foundation validated van den Brink’s approach: digitalization was not simply about cutting costs through automation but about creating new sources of competitive advantage.

Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, has articulated a particularly influential vision of how AI augments human capability rather than simply replacing it. Nadella’s concept of “AI-assisted productivity” suggests that the most effective implementations combine human judgment with machine intelligence. This perspective proved particularly relevant for Heineken, where decisions about product development, market strategy, and customer relationships require human insight that AI can enhance but not replace. Van den Brink’s framing of AI as contributing to “productivity savings” rather than simply “job elimination” reflects this more nuanced understanding.

The Specific Application: Heineken’s Digital Imperative

Within Heineken specifically, van den Brink’s emphasis on digitalization and AI addressed several concrete operational challenges:

Supply Chain Optimisation: Brewing and beverage distribution involve complex logistics across hundreds of markets. AI-powered demand forecasting, route optimisation, and inventory management could significantly reduce waste, improve delivery efficiency, and lower transportation costs-all critical in an industry where margins had compressed.

Manufacturing Excellence: Modern breweries generate vast quantities of operational data. Machine learning algorithms could identify patterns in production processes, predict equipment failures before they occur, and optimise resource utilisation. This was particularly important as Heineken consolidated production capacity in response to lower demand.

Customer Intelligence: Digital channels provided unprecedented insight into consumer behaviour. AI could personalise marketing, optimise pricing strategies, and identify emerging consumer trends faster than traditional market research. This capability was essential as Heineken competed with craft brewers, premium brands, and non-alcoholic alternatives.

Workforce Transformation: Rather than simply eliminating jobs, digitalization could redeploy workers from routine tasks towards higher-value activities-innovation, customer engagement, strategic analysis. This aligned with van den Brink’s vision of EverGreen as a transformation strategy, not merely a cost-cutting exercise.

The Broader Industry Context

Van den Brink’s perspective on AI and digitalization was not idiosyncratic but reflected a broader consensus among beverage industry leaders. The global beer market faced structural headwinds: declining per-capita consumption in developed markets, health-consciousness trends, regulatory pressures around alcohol, and intensifying competition from alternative beverages. Within this context, every major brewer-from AB InBev to Diageo to Molson Coors-pursued aggressive digital transformation programmes. Van den Brink’s articulation of this strategy was distinctive primarily in its candour and its integration with broader organisational restructuring.

The Personal Dimension: Leadership Under Pressure

Van den Brink’s statement about AI and digitalization must also be understood within the context of his personal experience as CEO. In interviews, he described the unique pressures of the role-the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” dilemmas that reach the CEO’s desk. The decision to pursue aggressive digitalization and workforce reduction was precisely this type of dilemma: necessary for long-term competitiveness but painful in its immediate human and organisational consequences. Van den Brink’s emphasis on AI as a tool for “productivity savings” rather than simply “job cuts” reflected his attempt to frame these difficult decisions within a narrative of progress and transformation rather than decline and retrenchment.

Notably, van den Brink announced his departure as CEO effective 31 May 2026, after nearly six years in the role. His decision to step down came shortly after launching EverGreen 2030 and amid the company’s ongoing restructuring. Whilst the official announcement emphasised his desire to hand over leadership as the company entered a new phase, industry observers noted that the 20% decline in Heineken’s share price during his tenure and the company’s failure to meet margin targets may have influenced his decision. His conviction about AI and digitalization remained unshaken-indeed, he agreed to remain available to Heineken as an adviser for eight months following his departure-but the emotional and psychological toll of navigating the industry’s transformation had evidently taken its measure.

Conclusion: Technology as Necessity, Not Choice

When van den Brink asserted that “digitalization in general and AI specifically will be an important part of ongoing productivity savings,” he was articulating a conviction grounded in economic theory, industry practice, and hard commercial reality. For Heineken and the broader beverage industry, AI and digitalization were not optional enhancements but essential responses to structural market changes. Van den Brink’s leadership-and his ultimate decision to step aside-reflected the immense challenge of stewarding a legacy industrial company through technological and market transformation. His emphasis on AI as a driver of productivity savings represented both genuine strategic conviction and an attempt to frame necessary but difficult organisational changes within a narrative of progress and modernisation.