Sysco Corporation (NYSE: SYY), a global leader in food distribution, has earned recognition at the 2026 Newsweek AI Impact Awards for its innovative use of artificial intelligence to strengthen operations across its enterprise.
The company received the award in the AI Brand & Retail – Best Outcomes category, recognising the success of its company-wide AI framework known as the Sysco Agentic Ecosystem (SAGE). Developed to integrate artificial intelligence into day-to-day business operations, SAGE supports a wide range of functions including supply chain management, sales productivity, customer engagement, and internal operational processes.
The recognition highlights Sysco’s efforts to move beyond AI experimentation and transform the technology into a practical, enterprise-wide capability that delivers measurable business outcomes.
Commenting on the achievement, Sysco Interim Chief Information and Digital Officer Navin Advani described SAGE as a major milestone in the responsible adoption of artificial intelligence within a complex global business environment.
“By embedding AI directly into operational workflows, ranging from customer interactions and sales support to supply chain planning, inventory optimisation, and administrative functions, we are turning AI into a sustainable business capability rather than simply a collection of tools,” Advani stated.
The Newsweek AI Impact Awards celebrate organisations that demonstrate tangible and measurable outcomes through artificial intelligence, recognising businesses that successfully apply AI to generate lasting operational improvements and strategic value.
The award further reinforces Sysco’s leadership in adopting responsible AI solutions to address large-scale retail and supply chain challenges while creating a model for enterprise-wide AI implementation.
The achievement also reflects the contribution of Sysco LABS Sri Lanka, whose engineering teams played a significant role in developing SAGE. Sysco LABS Sri Lanka Managing Director Thushera Kawdawatta said the recognition marked an important milestone for both the company and the local innovation ecosystem.
“Receiving the 2026 Newsweek AI Impact Award for AI Brand & Retail Excellence is a proud moment for the broader Sysco network. Our teams in Sri Lanka have been deeply involved in building and engineering SAGE, contributing directly to a globally recognised innovation,” Kawdawatta noted.
He further highlighted that the recognition, alongside honours received at the Presidential Export Awards and the SLASSCOM National Ingenuity Awards, demonstrates the growing global impact of technology innovation emerging from Sri Lanka.
SAGE is designed to help teams automate workflows, generate insights faster, and improve decision-making through AI-powered systems supported by human oversight. Across e-commerce and sales functions, the platform enables more personalised customer experiences, enhanced product discovery through Sysco Shop, and intelligent recommendations for sales teams through Next Best Actions (NBAs).
Within a relatively short period, SAGE has progressed from pilot programmes to large-scale deployment, supporting millions of business interactions across Sysco’s operations while powering multiple AI-driven solutions.
At its core, SAGE functions as an intelligent integration layer that connects external AI models and technologies with Sysco’s internal systems and business data to create smarter workflows across the organisation. Designed with flexibility in mind, the platform is model-agnostic and compatible with multiple cloud infrastructures, enabling Sysco to adopt evolving AI technologies while maintaining strong standards in security, compliance, and human oversight.
By creating a standardised framework for developing, governing, and deploying AI agents, Sysco aims to accelerate the rollout of scalable AI solutions that deliver faster business value across its global operations.
