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A year after implementation, Nestlé has claimed its generative AI tool ‘NesGPT’ is saving its staff an average of 45 minutes per week.
Nestlé introduced the tool to its North American workforce in August 2023 after a successful global pilot in May.
NesGPT is powered by ChatGPT and supports staff with tasks ranging from drafting content and meeting agendas to data analysis, idea generation, and proofreading.
Speaking to WorkLife, Nestlé’s Head of IT for North America Shan Collins said the company has been experimenting with the internal tool to see how it could boost corporate efficiency.
“Our goal is to help lighten the weight of work for employees by streamlining processes and empowering them with access to more on-demand information, so they can free up time to do their best thinking, and ultimately help improve decision-making across the business,” Collins explained.
According to Nestlé, over 7,000 North American employees have used the internal tool over the past three months, across departments including sales, product innovation, marketing, and legal.
In that period, over 230,000 prompts were generated.
“Our vision is to unleash the power of our people by digitally transforming the workplace to lighten the weight of work and help our employees thrive as their most creative, collaborative selves,” Collins added.
How does Nestlé get employees to use AI (safely)?
While some staff are eager to use generative AI – Nestlé says the tool helps it prevent compliance risks associated with ‘Shadow AI,’ the unregulated use of AI – others are less comfortable.
Collins noted training and upskilling have helped encourage the adoption of NesGPT, particularly among those whose digital literacy is not as strong.
“Since its initial rollout, we’ve provided several training sessions across our organization while also continuously working to develop our employees’ broader digital capabilities,” he said.
Nestlé’s training includes sessions on using the tool, guidance on effective prompt writing, and ongoing tip sharing to make sure employees are getting the most benefit from the technology and consider new scenarios or potential applications for using the tool.
As well as saving workers an average of 45 minutes a week, Nestlé said users of NesGPT cited the ability to create better and faster content and spend less time searching for information.
“What’s really exciting is that gen AI technology has progressed significantly in a short period of time,” Collins continued. “That, combined with our employees getting early experience in how to leverage these solutions as a digital personal assistant, will open up more opportunities and generate even greater benefits for our employees and the business.”
How will Nestlé employees use AI for work moving forward?
According to Collins, Nestlé will continue to use AI across the business moving forward, for everything from inter-team collaboration to forecasting when its products will become out of stock at retail stores.
A particular area of focus has been within the company’s innovation tool. Over 100 employees in Nestlé’s innovation community have been trained on a generative-AI-powered tool that analyses market trends and consumer insights data to generate product concepts and ideas.
Collins claimed this has shrunk the product ideation process from six months to six weeks. “Innovation is part of Nestlé’s DNA, and our investments in new tools and capabilities like AI are significant and central to fueling our growth,” said Collins.
“Our vision is to unleash the power of our people by digitally transforming the workplace to lighten the weight of work and help our employees thrive as their most creative, collaborative selves.”
