Me, Myself, and AI: A Podcast on Artificial Intelligence in Business

Why do only 10% of companies succeed with AI? For four years, BCG and MIT SMR have studied corporate adoption of artificial intelligence. The most recent research has found that 90% of organizations do not realize significant financial benefit from the technology. So, what are the other 10% doing right? Each episode of Me, Myself, and AI features a discussion with a leading practitioner helping his or her organization gain measurable value from AI.

Whether they work at a born-digital organization or (more often) a legacy company, our guests all have actionable insights to share. The series covers strategy, deployment, human-and-machine collaboration, and scaling. We also explore what first interested these leaders in AI, how they got to where they are today, and what keeps them excited about their field.

From Data to Wisdom: Novo Nordisk’s Tonia Sideri

Tonia Sideri, who leads Novo Nordisk’s AI and Analytics Center of Excellence, shares how her team partners with other business units to rapidly test new ideas before committing to technology projects.

Season Five

Episode 34: Big Data in Agriculture: Teddy Bekele of Land O’Lakes

How can descriptive analytics and AI help farmers improve crop production? Teddy Bekele, SVP and CTO of the agricultural cooperative Land O’Lakes, shares his experience.

Episode 33: Inventing the Beauty of the Future: L’Oréal’s Stéphane Lannuzel

Stéphane Lannuzel, director of the Beauty Tech program at L’Oréal, joins the Me, Myself, and AI podcast to discuss how artificial intelligence technology enables innovation in the cosmetics industry.

Episode 32: Precision Medicine in Pharma: Sanofi’s Frank Nestle

The CSO and global head of research explains how Sanofi uses AI to discover and develop targeted therapies.

Season Four

Episode 31: The Beauty of AI: Estée Lauder’s Sowmya Gottipati

Sowmya Gottipati describes how the cosmetics giant uses AI to offer better product recommendations to customers.
Episode 30: AI in Aerospace: Boeing’s Helen Lee

As Boeing China’s regional director of airspace and airport programs, Helen Lee is striving for innovative ways to improve operational efficiency on the ground and in the skies.
Episode 29: Transforming Transactions With Technology: eBay’s Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov

The company's chief artificial intelligence officer explains how the e-commerce platform uses AI to help both buyers and sellers.
Episode 28: The Collaboration Muscle: LinkedIn’s Ya Xu

LinkedIn’s Ya Xu discusses leading the site’s team of data scientists—and how they deliver value to consumers.
Episode 27: Turning Sound Into Information: Warner Music Group’s Kobi Abayomi

Warner Music Group’s Kobi Abayomi shares how AI helps customers discover new music, and his approach to hiring data scientists.
Episode 26: From Journalism to Jeans: Levi Strauss & Co.’s Katia Walsh

The senior vice president and chief global strategy and AI officer of Levi Straus & Co. explains how the clothing company’s machine learning boot camp is expanding employee skills and driving innovation.
Episode 25: AI in Your Living Room: Peloton’s Sanjay Nichani

Consumers have invited AI into their lives with voice-activated personal assistants like Siri and Alexa. But how do they feel about computer vision technologies that can provide visual coaching and feedback in their homes? Sanjay Nichani, vice president of artificial intelligence and computer vision at Peloton Interactive, describes one compelling use case in the at-home fitness space.
Episode 24: Extreme Innovation With AI: Stanley Black & Decker’s Mark Maybury

As the first chief technology officer at tool manufacturer Stanley Black & Decker, Mark Maybury oversees the company’s innovation portfolio and prioritizes the responsible use of artificial intelligence in its product development efforts. In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Maybury shares what it’s like being the champion of extreme innovation across the company and the importance of managing risk and rooting out bias in AI systems.

Season Three

Episode 23: Choreographing Human-Machine Collaboration: Spotify’s Sidney Madison Prescott

The streaming service’s global head of intelligent automation explains how technology helps employees make use of vast amounts of customer data. She also describes how the company uses AI to free up workers to focus on more value-added, creative tasks.
Episode 22: Imagining Furniture (and the Future) with AI: IKEA Retail’s Barbara Martin Coppola

Discover how the company’s digital transformation is a natural extension of its collaborative culture.
Episode 21: Transforming a Technology Organization for the Future: Starbucks’s Former CTO Gerri Martin-Flickinger

Learn why AI was essential to the coffee giant’s digital transformation on the Me, Myself, and AI podcast.
Episode 20: AI in the Supply Chain: Cold Chain Technologies’ Ranjeet Banerjee

This transportation and logistics company relies on AI to deliver COVID-19 vaccines safely and efficiently.
Episode 19: Technology as a Force for Good: Salesforce’s Paula Goldman

Salesforce’s Paula Goldman discusses how the tech company produces value-creating solutions with ethics in mind.
Episode 18: Predicting Volatility and Risk: Nasdaq’s Doug Hamilton

As an associate vice president and the head of AI research at Nasdaq, Douglas Hamilton works across business units to deploy AI wherever the technology can be used to expedite or improve processes related to global trading. In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, he describes how his team predicts market performance and mitigates risk by using AI.
Episode 17: Developing an Appetite for AI: ExxonMobil’s Sarah Karthigan

Sarah Karthigan, an AI operations manager with ExxonMobil, leads a data science team working to offer reliable and affordable energy to a variety of populations. In this episode of the podcast Me, Myself, and AI, Karthigan explains how her team communicates the value of artificial intelligence to executives throughout the company in order to obtain buy-in for a variety of technology initiatives.
Episode 16: Democratizing Data in Hollywood: Jumpcut’s Kartik Hosanagar

When Kartik Hosanagar learned firsthand that the film industry is reluctant to take risks on new writers and directors, he founded Jumpcut, a venture-funded startup that aims to uncover new voices in TV and film. In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Hosanagar, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, discusses how his company uses artificial intelligence to discover diverse talent that might otherwise be overlooked.

Season Two

Episode 15: AI and the COVID-19 Vaccine: Moderna’s Dave Johnson

In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Moderna’s chief data and artificial intelligence officer Dave Johnson explains how AI helped the pharma company develop a COVID-19 vaccine in record time.
Episode 14: Starting Now On Technology Ethics: Elizabeth Renieris

In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Elizabeth Renieris, founding director of the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab, discusses the risks of bias in AI and the importance of developing the right incentives and regulations for companies to responsibly manage their use of the technology.
Episode 13: No Need for AI Unicorns: PepsiCo’s Colin Lenaghan

Colin Lenaghan’s nearly 25-year career at PepsiCo has led him to a role overseeing strategic artificial intelligence initiatives in the company’s revenue management group. In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Lenaghan shares his thoughts on dealing with cultural change, the types of AI skills and competencies organizations should cultivate, and the digital transformation projects that keep him learning every day.
Episode 12: DIY With AI: The Home Depot’s Huiming Qu

In this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Huiming Qu, senior director of data science at The Home Depot, discusses the reward mechanisms that motivate development teams, the importance of iteration to quickly solve large problems, and how machine learning and artificial intelligence help customers execute their home improvement projects.
Episode 11: Prototypes, Pilots, and Polymers: Cooper Standard’s Chris Couch

Automotive supplier Cooper Standard is using AI to improve technologies consumers take for granted in their everyday lives. In this episode of Me, Myself, and AI, Chris Couch, senior vice president and CTO at Cooper Standard, describes the company’s open innovation initiatives and commitment to employee engagement as it deploys and scales its AI solutions.
Episode 10: Designing for a Better Future: Mastercard’s JoAnn Stonier

JoAnn Stonier, chief data officer at Mastercard, discusses how design thinking enables better AI implementation.
Episode 9: Learning, Engagement, and Empowerment: 1-800-Flowers’ Amit Shah

Amit Shah, president of 1-800-Flowers, describes the platform business’ approach to problem-solving with technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning, highlights the importance of continuous learning to continually address new business problems, and explains why failure is an essential aspect of progress.
Episode 8: Games, Teams, and Moonshots: Google Cloud’s Will Grannis

Will Grannis has the unique challenge of leading a collective of chief technology officers at Google Cloud. Listen to this episode of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast, where he describes how he brings cross-functional teams together with customers to drive innovation in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Episode 7: Less Algorithm, More Application: Lyft’s Craig Martell

Craig Martell, vice president of machine learning at Lyft, kicksoff season two of the Me, Myself, and AI podcast with a discussion about bias, education, and the importance of cross-functional awareness throughout technology initiatives.

Season One

Episode 6: Tech and Ethics: The World Economic Forum’s Kay Firth-Butterfield on Doing the Right Thing in AI

“Companies want to go in doing the right thing”: Kay Firth-Butterfield, head of AI and machine learning at the World Economic Forum, discusses the balance of power and ethics in technology.
Episode 5: Fashion Forecasting: Arti Zeighami on Implementing AI at H&M

“It’s a combination of the human and machine, the gut feeling and the data”: Arti Zeighami, H&M’s chief data and analytics officer, talks about implementing AI at a global retailer.
Episode 4: Better Together: Mattias Ulbrich on Combining Coffee, Business, and Technology at Porsche

“Collaboration between the machine and the person is very important”: In this week’s episode of MIT SMR and BCG’s Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Mattias Ulbrich, CIO of Porsche and CEO of Porsche Digital, talks about how AI can drive change in business, engineering, and society.
Episode 3: ‘The First Day Is the Worst Day’: DHL’s Gina Chung on How AI Improves Over Time

“With AI, the first day is the worst day”: Gina Chung, vice president of innovation at DHL, explains how AI enhances front-line operations, and the importance of human collaboration and buy-in on AI implementations.
Episode 2: Advancing Health Care With AI: Humana’s Slawek Kierner Talks Synthetic Data and Real Lives

“If you take a physician looking at health history of a synthetic individual, they cannot tell it’s unreal”: Slawek Kierner, senior vice president digital health and analytics at Humana, talks about using data simulations to predict real outcomes in this episode of MIT SMR and BCG’s Me, Myself, and AI podcast.
Episode 1: This Crazy Wave We’re Riding: Walmart’s Prakhar Mehrotra on the Ups and Downs of AI

“It’s a roller-coaster ride,” says Prakhar Mehrotra, vice president of machine learning at Walmart. In this week’s episode of MIT SMR’s Me, Myself, and AI podcast, Mehrotra shares the ups and downs of leading AI teams and workstreams for the $500 billion retailer that tops the list of Fortune 500 companies.

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