Dive Brief:
- Colgate-Palmolive is making AI adoption plans that focus on scale and business impact rather than hype, according to Chairman, President and CEO Noel Wallace, speaking during a conference last week.
- “There will be a lot of efficiency gained through smaller things, developing presentations, writing memos, translating contracts,” Wallace said, according to a Seeking Alpha transcript. “It is not going to distract us from the big opportunities where the company is focused on and where we were going to add resources to scale.”
- The household product maker plans to train every non-plant worker on basic AI principles, prompting, guardrails and ethical use by the end of the year, Wallace said.
Dive Insight:
Large enterprises are moving forward measuredly on AI adoption plans as the pressure to identify ROI grows.
Colgate-Palmolive is concentrating its AI resources and investment on use cases that can scale in its 200 markets around the world — carefully trying to avoid falling victim to shiny object syndrome.
“If we can’t scale them, it’s just talk and PR,” Wallace said. The path to generative AI adoption isn’t easy and other CEOs are getting candid about what generative AI success looks like for their company.
At Clorox, for example, CEO Linda Rendle said gaining a competitive advantage with generative AI will be harder than simply adding it to their toolkit. In highly-regulated industries, banking giants, like JPMorgan, believe their company’s aspirations hinge on teams’ ability to manage risks and resources efficiently as their AI efforts ramp up.
While making the time to experiment with generative AI, enterprises are increasing their attention on the technology foundation and governance structure that facilitates it.
Colgate-Palmolive also rounded out its technology C-suite revamp in January with the promotion of David Foster to CIO, leading the company’s global IT team and digital transformation efforts. The company started a revenue growth management investment strategy nearly four years ago and partnered with vendors, such as SAP, to bring tech to the forefront, Wallace said.
“The big change again, for the company was we took IT out of a cost center, and we put IT into our growth group because we really wanted to make IT an enabler for change, an enabler for growth, and it was a big part of our ‘25,” Wallace said during the conference. “AI is part of our 2030 strategy.”
