Using AI for corporate good: Hype, hope or real-world impact?
From streamlining operations to rethinking R&D, artificial intelligence is being pitched as the ultimate business game-changer. But beyond the headlines, what does AI actually do inside companies? And how can businesses – especially those without massive tech teams – start using it meaningfully?
In the latest episode of the Better Business Show, I sat down with Oday Abbosh , Senior Partner at IBM, to get into the nuts and bolts of this.
One of the most interesting examples we talked about is IBM’s work with L’Oréal. Together, they’re using generative AI to speed up product formulation – not just making it faster to develop cosmetics, but also smarter, using better materials with a lower footprint. It's R&D powered by AI, but guided by humans and company data.
So what are the lessons for the rest of us? Here are 5 key takeaways from the conversation:
1. AI isn’t magic, it's problem-solving. Start with a clear business challenge. The more specific the problem, the more effective the AI solution. Ambiguity is the enemy of ROI.
2. It's not all about scale. You don’t have to be a tech giant to use AI. Even mid-sized companies can make gains – especially in areas like customer service, supply chain or internal efficiency.
3. Small models can be big wins. Everyone talks about large language models, but IBM’s work with L’Oréal shows how smaller, tailored models, trained on the right data, can be just as powerful, and far less energy-intensive.
4. Ethics and energy matter. AI comes with an environmental and ethical cost. From data centre location to chip efficiency, every decision adds up. Responsible deployment isn't a side issue – it’s central.
5. Get hands-on, not hands-off. If you’re in a leadership role, engage personally with the tech. Play with it. Understand it. Then give your teams space to explore and test it too. Culture shifts start from the top.
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The bottom line?
AI can absolutely make your business faster, leaner and smarter. But only if you take the time to really understand it – and if you deploy it with intention.
🎧 Want the full story? Listen to my conversation with Oday Abbosh from IBM on the Better Business Show. We explore the L’Oréal case study, the ethics of AI, practical advice for getting started, and where the real opportunities lie.
👉 Listen to the episode here: www.narrativematters.co.uk/podcast
(or search for Better Business Show wherever you get your podcasts)
#ArtificialIntelligence #AIForBusiness #BetterBusiness #Leadership #Innovation #DigitalTransformation #LOréal #IBM #GenerativeAI #ResponsibleTech #BusinessStrategy #RAndD #ProductInnovation
Sustainability Leadership Scientist & Practitioner | TEDx Speaker | HBR Author | Top 1% most cited social scientists worldwide | Download my new whitepaper on influencing your Scope 3 stakeholders to reduce emissions
1wTom Idle thanks for such a balanced review of AI, the pros & cons, & realities. It's a tool that can help humans make decisions differently, but ultimately it's humans who decide. Take the work on identifying where to build improvements, the what and where has been know for a while with complex GIS but not energy wasting AI. The problem now is how to get policy makers to invest in builds. This comes from voters leading small scale change, which companies can sponsor, showing the demand and advocating for additional investments, where the policy maker can take credit. That's how change happens. AI can also identify who or what from smart home data, but how to incentivize change still comes from human experiments because there isn't the training data to inform AI models what will work in every new scenario. There are new programs translating motivational interviewing into an AI skill, so that is a more behaviorally focused way to create change.
Writer/editor at Freelance journalist
2wInteresting stuff Tom Idle. I am this week writing about how green NGOs are using tech like AI and satellites to hold corporates to account and influence policy; on the flip side, it seems from your podcast, that companies can also be using this tech to clean up their act...? Or at least not get caught out by the campaigners?