At technology and manufacturing company Honeywell, generative AI is everywhere. <\/p>\n
\u201cEvery function and every strategic business unit is now using gen AI,\u201d Sheila Jordan, the company\u2019s chief digital technology officer, who oversees AI integration internally within the organization, told Fortune. \u201cAnd the other thing I\u2019m super proud of is that we have it available to all 100,000 employees,\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company built its own \u201cHoneywell GPT,\u201d which helps employees draft and edit emails, summarize technical documents, translate content, and brainstorm ideas. Employees also use Red, a virtual assistant that serves as a central resource for accessing company information around IT, finance, HR, and the firm\u2019s policy library. Engineers are coding with AI, and the company is reimagining its varied products and services with new generative AI\u2013powered offerings. Overall, the company has 24 generative AI initiatives in production and 12 more on the way,\u00a0compared with 16 a year ago<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n As companies across different business sectors incorporate AI into their operations, an emerging set of best practices reveals a variety of approaches, from decentralized, experimentation-driven cultures to tightly choreographed strategies that can scale across an organization. Honeywell, which ranked at No. 17 in the Fortune AIQ 50 list of Fortune 500 companies with the most \u201cmature\u201d AI capabilities, is a case study in how to excel by taking the latter approach.<\/p>\n Jordan and CTO Suresh Venkatarayalu, who oversees AI product efforts, believe the company\u2019s success in maturing its AI capabilities directly stems from its \u201csix-chapter AI framework.\u201d Along with the organization\u2019s top-down approach to AI, adhering to the framework has allowed them to focus on efforts with immediate impact in order to kick off the flywheel effect.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat are the use cases? And can I measure and track them?\u201d said Venkatarayalu, describing how the company zeroes in on impact. \u201cIn fact, tomorrow we have a meeting with Sheila and the CFO looking at the 2026 road map and to ask me the real question: \u2018Could we track it to the P&L?\u2019 And we should track it to the P&L. That\u2019s the way it\u2019s set up.\u201d<\/p>\n The six-point strategy<\/p>\n In the fast-moving world of AI, it can be difficult to prioritize, stay on track, and resist trying to do everything at once. That\u2019s why Honeywell\u2019s leadership created a six-chapter framework in early 2024 to guide the organization\u2019s AI efforts and keep it focused strictly on use cases it believes will truly move the needle.<\/p>\n \u201cWe could get distracted by the long, long, long tail and all the noise and all the things people might want to do, but we have a whole program to prioritize those things that are going to move the needle in business value, both on productivity and growth and innovation,\u201d said Jordan, adding that the organization \u201cwould have been confused and lost\u201d without the framework and clarity from her and Venkatarayalu about which generative AI capabilities were fit for implementation.<\/p>\n The first chapter of the framework is about the tools\u2014such as Red and Honeywell GPT\u2014designed to assist employees in their everyday workflows. Then there\u2019s chapter two, focused on the use of generative AI for engineering. Chapter three is how the firm \u201cthinks about cognitive automation,\u201d Jordan said, specifically how it\u2019s using different LLMs (large language models) from Azure, Google<\/a>, AWS, and others for specific use cases. Next, chapter four is all about generative AI in the commercial applications they purchase and use, like Salesforce<\/a> and other platforms. Chapter five centers on the company\u2019s own products and services. And lastly, chapter six focuses on sales effectiveness.<\/p>\n \u201cI think our chapters will work for any enterprise,\u201d said Venkatarayalu. \u201cIt\u2019s productivity, it\u2019s growth, and it\u2019s margins.\u201d<\/p>\n Chasing the flywheel effect<\/p>\n Jordan said the fact that the technology can be applied to so many use cases is one of the biggest challenges to overcome, so it helps to start with ones that have the biggest immediate impact. That way, those early successes can drive the effort forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, she said early work with GitHub and Copilot were the \u201cfirst movers\u201d and delivered the value they thought it would, which started the AI efforts off on a strong note.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it works, the flywheel takes off. If it doesn\u2019t work, it dies its death, right? So I wanted the flywheel effect where we could do something and show the organization the value of gen AI,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n This means going in with a business case and value proposition in mind, but being open to value coming through in a different way than assumed, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe could say [the value] was going to be productivity, but in reality, it was a sales effectiveness play. We got a higher conversion from something. So I would just say to stay super open to the business benefits, because they can morph based upon your customer and partner interactions,\u201d Jordan added.\u00a0<\/p>\n The top-down approach<\/p>\n Another key element to keeping the organization on target and adhering to its AI framework is its top-down approach.\u00a0<\/p>\n The company has 65 business units, and Venkatarayalu pointed to how other companies start with a lot of proof of concepts, letting business units pursue their own strategies and democratizing the AI efforts. But not Honeywell, which he said is \u201cpredominantly top-down-driven\u201d when it comes to AI.<\/p>\n \u201cI think this company looks at use cases first, value second,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd once we believe\u2014along with our CEO and chairman and the business unit leaders\u2014[that a use case will deliver value], we drive that. I think that\u2019s a very different [mindset] than many of my peers.\u201d\n<\/p>\n Read more lessons from the Fortune AIQ 50<\/a>, the latest Fortune AIQ<\/a> special report. This collection of stories details how companies on the inaugural Fortune AIQ 50<\/a> list have made significant progress integrating artificial intelligence technology into their operations, leading to real impact.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At technology and manufacturing company Honeywell, generative AI is everywhere. \u201cEvery function and every strategic business unit is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,24084,181,507,6066,21481,118626,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-206571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-always-free","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-fortune-500","13":"tag-fortune-500-companies","14":"tag-honeywell-international","15":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}