In 2025, executives around the world are grappling with a common question: How do we really make the most of AI?
Successfully integrating AI goes far beyond just buying a few software licenses. It requires fostering a culture open to innovation, equipping employees with the skills they need, and ensuring AI actually adds value to teams’ day-to-day workflows. And it’s obvious that’s where the struggle begins for many organizations:
There’s no one-size-fits-all solution for successfully integrating AI across an organization. However, executives can definitely learn from some companies that have been doing it well.
The takeaway from Marriott: foster grassroots innovation by giving employees the right spaces to build and experiment. An AI incubator could ensure that you develop unique AI-powered solutions that are truly relevant to your team’s work and inspire a culture of innovation.
But it’s not just about what AI can do for people; PwC also acknowledges that AI needs to be used responsibly, so they’ve set up feedback loops where employees validate AI outputs and ensure they comply with ethical standards. This allows PwC to more confidently adopt AI across various departments—from marketing personalization to content creation—while maintaining control and accountability.
The takeaway from PwC: Effective AI adoption can look like a mix of hands-on training, gamified learning, and human oversight to guide ethical and practical use.
The takeaway from Ikea: A universal challenge to embracing new technology is the lack of blocked-off time for learning. Structured learning, all the way to the highest level of a company, can ease this.
S&P’s key differentiator is an emphasis on rigorous AI benchmarking and evaluation of AI-generated results. The company ensures compliance with ethical standards and high accuracy by validating AI outputs through standardized metrics. This enables the company to deploy AI confidently across its operations, driving innovation while maintaining accountability.
The takeaway from S&P: Combining specialized benchmarking with robust training and oversight enables companies to leverage AI effectively, especially when operating in highly data-driven fields.
Across industries, AI is a game-changer, but the companies seeing the most success are those that take a comprehensive, multifaceted approach. By empowering employees, fostering continuous learning, ensuring ethical oversight, and embedding AI into daily operations, these four major companies offer early case studies for unlocking AI’s full potential.
Companies of all stripes can do the same. Leaders should focus not just on implementing AI but on embedding it into the core of their organizations—ensuring that AI enhances human creativity, boosts productivity, and drives meaningful innovation for years to come.
The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.
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