AI Navigates Responsible Marketing Innovation at Ecolab

Jeff Mosier:

Hi, I'm Jess Mosier. I'm the marketing content lead for the Emphasis Knowledge Institute. And I'm here with Rebecca.

Rebecca Lakin:

I'm Rebecca Lakin, Director of Marketing Communications, Food and Beverage at Ecolab.

Jeff Mosier:

Tell us a little bit about where your organization is with AI. What's your maturity level? What are you doing with AI?

Rebecca Lakin:

I will say we're really in that experimental phase. From our product and innovation side, we are absolutely looking at it like, how do we integrate it into what we sell and what we do? On the marketing side, we're still in that early phase of seeing where it makes sense. We are using Microsoft Copilot. And so sometimes it might be around content development or refining things to make more personalized, but still very early in our development stage when it comes to AI.

Jeff Mosier:

Are you surprised that you're at this current stage? Did you think you'd be farther along maybe a year ago or two years ago when generative AI kind of exploded everywhere?

Rebecca Lakin:

I think we're in the spot that most corporations are going to find themselves in, where you have a few really early adopters who've broken through and really pushed something. And then you'll have, as an organization, especially as large as us, it just takes a little longer for that technology to kind of trickle out, especially the approval levels as you kind of navigate that because AI is not without risk. And any corporation with a data security team is going to be the first to be like, "Let's look at this before anybody does anything."

Jeff Mosier:

How are y'all handling the issues of responsible AI and putting structures in place to handle that?

Rebecca Lakin:

We definitely have teams looking at it. Groups within our marketing team who are looking at ethics of content. I think particularly as we look at content like this, I mean, you could use an AI version of me. What does that mean in the context of likeness and other kind of communication tools? Do you want a spokesperson just being an AI version of the ... What does that do to your quality and that trust? So we have different groups looking at those kind of things, as well as a development team that are actually making it possible and making the tools and building it into our offering.

Jeff Mosier:

How far along are you in kind of developing these responsible AI standards and figuring out how best to use it with minimizing the risk?

Rebecca Lakin:

I would say we take a really responsible approach to everything. One of the things that's really great about Ecolab's approach to water and how we manage it, because AI is an intensive user of water and things like that. And you need to make sure that you're doing that responsibly. So not only are we looking at the energy it uses, how do we make it more sustainable and help companies with those data centers doing it. But then also for our own, I would say our phase is there are standards. Our ethics have always said from the start, of kind of that authentic and who we are as a company and our values have always been there. We're just building on them. So I wouldn't say like, "Oh, we're super established. It's all entrenched." No, we're all still learning like everyone else and we're trying to adapt and be better about that.

Jeff Mosier:

What are the biggest risks for AI with your company? I know some places look at it with concerns about how customers will look at authentic voice. In other cases, it's about leaking data that should not be leaked. What's kind of the biggest worry?

Rebecca Lakin:

I don't know that we have necessarily unique challenges. I think you listed them all. It really is about what is the ethics of using AI generated content? Whose information are you pulling in? Someone's likeness. All of that, absolutely, that's not unique to us.

I think specifically as we look at AI, what we really want to drive with AI is more efficiency. And particularly what I do in the food and beverage world, there's like a whole amount of data that no one's looking at and no one really has time to look at it. And so we're really looking at AI of how can we innovate with it to make that manageable and digestible for people in ways that haven't been before, not necessarily to replace a task that a human's been doing. I think some people look at AI in that way, but we really see it in that innovation. How do we make something possible that wasn't possible before?

Jeff Mosier:

Yeah, that's related to my next question. We've done some research previously and we kind of found that a lot of early adopters were using it for efficiency, time savings, stuff like that. But the next question was, how do you get past that and get to the innovation part?

Rebecca Lakin:

I think the barriers are within the innovation, the people. How do we navigate it? How do we look at it? How do we kind of put our own egos aside sometimes to let it kind of grow and be okay with mistakes and learning? I don't think there's anything particularly unique and innovating with AI. I think is really just our own normal human barriers.

Jeff Mosier:

What kind of pushback do you get on AI from the people involved, the people in your company? What are they concerned about?

Rebecca Lakin:

It really depends on which group you're talking to. Status security, what information are we putting in? What are we pulling out? How is it optimizing? If I talk to say, a food safety expert, they want to make sure whatever answer it's giving is actually accurate. We've all seen examples of where people have used AI and it just spouts out nonsense. And you really need that quality check and that verification. So as we look at different team members, that's what they're looking at. I mean, I have had team members like, "Oh, is it going to replace my job?" And if AI can start reading minds, maybe, but until then, it's still just a tool to amplify and make efficiency. And that's kind of the areas we're seeing now. It's really about that quality check, making sure it's actually right.

Jeff Mosier:

You mentioned efficiency is kind of one benefit you've gotten so far. What are some other benefits you've seen in your AI efforts so far in marketing in particular?

Rebecca Lakin:

There's the efficiency and also kind of helping you break out of your own writer's block. So yes, it can make you more efficient, like find this email. But specifically, especially in corporate worlds, you kind of spend a lot of time with your brand. Your consumer, your customers don't see that. They see your brands every once in a while. But sometimes just kind of like, "Oh, I feel like I'm doing the same thing over and over again." So then you can kind of put it in this and it reflects it back to you and kind of find gaps when you're thinking and help you analyze it in different ways. Maybe even see a perspective you didn't think of if you prompt it and ask it in the right way.

Jeff Mosier:

Where do you see AI going in the near future? What are the benefits that maybe you're not getting from it now that you think you might be getting in a year or so?

Rebecca Lakin:

I feel like if we go back to when Apple was making the iPhone or other versions and [inaudible 00:06:16] people are like people don't want to do this in their pocket, they don't want a computer. I think AI is going to have an element of that. There's a lot of actual ethical concerns about how do we bring this technology, absolutely. But at the same time, it's how do we adapt and bring it to make us more seeing things, especially data. Particularly what I look at is food safety and the water quality. There are mounds and mounds of data that we don't even have access to, but AI is going to make that possible and make it in a digestible way that we could actually do things, make things improved around the world.

Jeff Mosier:

I'm with you. That's what I want to see. I've discussed that with people on our team about how can we take this data we get from say survey research and analyze it in ways we couldn't just individually and find stuff that we ... Trends we didn't know.

Rebecca Lakin:

I mean, even on that side, if we look at food manufacturing, we look at food safety, you have all of these handwritten swabs they're doing to see this. And if we put it into an AI system, it can actually flag when there is a microbe risk or see where in a plant you're having an issue, because otherwise it's like a football field worth of piping that you're trying to identify. And the marketers are innovating that right now, trying to push the boundaries of current thinking. So yes, it's also kind of like pushing the bounds of like survey data and bringing that in, but really the power of AI could be really changing in some of the industries. Yes, some of it's like content creation. Do we need copyright issues? No, but hopefully we can take it in a direction of like really impactful and like a really profound impact that could make some of those downsides more palatable.

Jeff Mosier:

Well, I mean, everyone's making AI tools constantly. They're always getting a little bit better or at least a little bit different. What do you see as kind of long-term focus on how you kind of integrate AI more into marketing? What do you need to do to kind of prep your organization for that?

Rebecca Lakin:

It really comes down to training and people being willing to just sit with it and train it. AI agents or AI chatbots, all of those are like having a new employee. They need to learn and you need to plan to teach them. If you have an onboarding plan, you're probably going to have a tool that actually works for you. If you're just going to go in there and type nonsense and hope it spits back what you wanted it to, it's not going to work.

So it's kind of that training and a lot of that's hands-on. You can sit in an AI training day in, day out. I mean, I had a conference talking about this, but unless I go actually implement, most of the learning's actually just using it and trying it. So it's giving really actionable tasks to team members to actually go into whatever the agent is doing or a chat one that it can actually learn it. I think the key thing for any organization is to really understand that it's not just a magic wand. You need to put time and energy into it to train it to do what you want it to do.

Jeff Mosier:

Are there any other areas where you think it will offer some benefits long-term that you're not able to do now? Are there specific hurdles that are holding you back from expanding AI a little bit more?

Rebecca Lakin:

I think it really comes down to data privacy. One of the biggest limitations right now is as my IT team gets more comfortable with it and give us more access to it, that'll expand our capabilities to do that. Otherwise, we're going through those reviews, making sure because the reality is some of those programs are taking your information and when you're a company that deals in patents, you want to be really careful with where you put it. I see nothing but opportunity. It really comes with partnership between marketing and our technology teams to understand where the data's going, where it's pulling. And once we unlock that, we'll have a lot more potential to use it and expand what we're doing.

Jeff Mosier:

There's been discussion for years about silos and companies. And do you feel like AI is forcing companies to kind of break down some of those silos? Because you have one person or one group in charge of the data, another group that wants to use that data and you have to figure out some way to make that work.

Rebecca Lakin:

At the end of the day, that's an issue that's being pushed not just by AI, but just the way of the flow of business in the current environment, there are a lot of things that just force us to be more efficient with our time and our attention, even with the rise of social media and just having your phone in your pocket. People are distracted and it makes those silos harder to maintain because there are ways to kind of break through and see what are going on. I will say my experience with Copilot specifically is I can typically, if someone makes it accessible for all of my company, I can see that and I can go find it if I'm asking the right questions. So yes, I do think AI might help break down some of those silos because it will allow us to create more brand connectiveness and consistency.

Jeff Mosier:

I think the digital transformation and then the move to cloud and all of that kind of stuff put pressure on getting rid of those silos or at least trying to break them down a little bit and maybe made it get a little closer to where it is now to AI. As far as employees at your company, what's kind of the range of opinions they have about AI? Are there some that are kind of worried about losing their jobs due to AI? Are there others that are thinking this is going to make my job significantly easier?

Rebecca Lakin:

Oh, we're seeing both. I can think in my immediate team of about 30 people, people who fall on both sides of that spectrum and a whole bunch of people in the middle who are just trying to figure it out, see how it can help them and make things easier.

Jeff Mosier:

What do you do to kind of encourage the ones who are AI skeptics and try to tell them that this is not going to be the end of the world?

Rebecca Lakin:

I think that some of the points around job replacement and things like that, those are things that you have to talk to people individually one-on-one and really about that relationship. Other people who have the really strong work environmental concerns, they're not wrong. Let's look at the technology. How can we help make it more efficient? And that's why I like working where I do because we want to look at that. How can we make the cooling technology actually work so it's using less resources to do that?

So there's kind of those two schools of it. So yeah, if someone has major environmental concerns, I'm like, yeah, let's have that actual conversation. What can we do to improve it? Why don't we look at what we currently have and bring that together? But yeah, in the job replacement, you have to understand what are you doing? How can we upskill you and what are you actually doing?

The people who are on the other extreme who are just going to try every new tool, I would probably tell them, just at least quality checking, actually look at it, review it, sit with it, because otherwise you might have a really weird headline and best to avoid that.

Jeff Mosier:

Yeah. Is there any way that AI has surprised you?

Rebecca Lakin:

I will say it kind of takes elements of how people act and who they are and it kind of amplifies it a little bit. So I have been surprised by some of my colleagues who I wouldn't have taken to be early adopters, just latching on, like, "This is so great." And naming their reasons. And it's kind of fun to see people who weren't as necessarily tech-savvy kind of jumping in on that. Whereas before it was always really tech ... Like early social media was the people who were super into computers who were coding their MySpace pages to do different things. And now you see it's just kind of a little more ... That user experience with ChatGPT has made it a lot more kind of accessible and that's been really kind of interesting to see.

Jeff Mosier:

Well, fantastic. Thank you so much. This was a pleasure.

Rebecca Lakin:

Absolutely.