Videos
AI Scales Under Governance at Medtronic
Insights
- Medtronic pairs grassroots experimentation from early adopters with centralized governance to keep AI use compliant and on-brand.
- The marketing team is investing in AI engine optimization to protect brand reputation and ensure trusted sources shape how the company is represented.
- Teams are building an audience-simulation tool to test content performance at scale before it reaches the market.
How does a global healthcare company scale AI across a 90,000-person organization while keeping brand trust intact?
Aniz Ruda, Vice President of Digital, Analytics, Insights, Media and Experience at Medtronic, discusses how AI adoption is unfolding across the company's communications, marketing, and product teams, and how governance and grassroots innovation work together rather than in competition.
Aniz highlights three critical shifts:
- How Medtronic separates AI embedded in products and technologies from AI used in day-to-day organizational workflows, letting each move at its own pace
- The marketing team is building proprietary tools with partners to create the data layer needed for audience simulation and testing at scale
- Measurement is evolving from simple engagement metrics toward brand lift, attribution, and downstream impact on business outcomes
Aniz describes a hyperautomation effort led by IT that has already transformed HR functions and explains why marketing and communications are taking a more deliberate approach given the stakes around brand trust and reputation. He points to real efficiency gains, from cost replacement to faster meeting recaps, while acknowledging that some team members remain hesitant to hand over judgment calls to AI. Looking ahead, Aniz is watching whether the AI tools market will consolidate the way search once did, narrowing today's crowded field to a handful of dominant players.
This interview was recorded at Cannes Lions 2026 as part of a partnership between Infosys Aster and the Association of National Advertisers. Click to learn more about the ANA and the Global CMO Growth Council.
Skyler Mattson:
Good morning. We are in the gorgeous south of France at Cannes Lions 2026, speaking with leaders driving innovation in AI. And today I'm joined with Aniz Ruda, Vice President, Data, Insights, and Performance Marketing of Medtronic. Welcome, Aniz. Thank you for joining me.
Aniz Ruda:
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
Skyler Mattson:
So happy to have you. So let's start with your role at Medtronic and how AI is a part of your remit.
Aniz Ruda:
Sure. So AI is spread out throughout our organization. So within communications and corporate marketing, we're at the forefront of usage. Everyone's using it on a day-to-day basis. We have high adoption. A lot of it's for finding efficiencies, using it for the basic tasks. I think where we're going next is trying to figure out how we can start advancing our workflows, how we can build more sophisticated tools to really revolutionize our work and create greater impact.
Skyler Mattson:
Fantastic. In some of the conversations I've been having about internal workflows with AI, we're hearing about this sort of bottom-up excitement where you have these early adopters, and they're trying all sorts of things. And then also the need for this a little bit of a top-down governance to ensure that people don't get too wild with the way they're using it, and that compliance and data issues all stay in play. Can you tell me a little bit about how that's happening at Medtronic? Top-down, bottom-up, a mixture?
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah, yeah. It certainly is a mixture. I think for us it's happening in two ways. So we have AI that goes into our products and technologies, so that's handled completely separately by data scientists, engineers, people that are building our products. And then we have the more organizational side, our hyperautomation team that's being driven by IT to get it in the hands of the people that are doing the other work every day, to see what kind of advancements we can make. I think our HR team has been very much at the forefront of it for our organization. Reminders of when reviews are. Resources, tools, things like that for employees that are around 90,000 people around the world. It starts to become a very impactful tool that people can rely on. I think for the marketing side and the communication side, that's really where we're starting to make more direct investments and trying to be a little more calculated with the approaches we take.
Skyler Mattson:
Can you share a little bit about how you're using AI in your marketing communications?
Aniz Ruda:
Yes. So we're really trying to be at the forefront of AI engine optimization. So really trying to integrate our content strategy, our content approach, channel mix, understanding where we need to show up as a brand, because trust and reputation is core to what we do, especially for the communications group and for our marketing team. So we want to make sure that we're protecting our brand and making sure that the right information is getting sourced from the dependable and reliable sources. So that's really one area of focus. Another one is just building tools that can help get more insights and data into the hands of people, and that's really where it's a bit of a passion project for me and some members of my team, trying to partner with the right data partners to lay a foundation in terms of what AI needs to make sense of versus trying to find it and make decisions on its own.
Skyler Mattson:
And what types of tools are you using? Are you using proprietary tools? Are you customizing some off-the-shelf solutions?
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah. Some of the things are proprietary. I think we are heavy Microsoft and Copilot users, a lot of agents and things being built for personal efficiencies. I think we're also using, we have an agreement with OpenAI through Microsoft as well, and we're trying to develop the right tool that's being custom-built with internal resources. And then we're partnering with GWI for some of our data to create that data layer that we need in order to build the right audiences for the simulations that we want to create.
Skyler Mattson:
Got it. We're talking a lot about unlocking value with AI. Are you seeing the return on investment? How are you measuring the value you're getting from these various tools?
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah. I think there's a lot of cost replacement, where historically we may have gone to a software provider or outsourced some of the work, and we're finding that there's efficiencies from that lens. We're finding time savings through project management work that typically, you know, meeting recaps, things like that. That's really where we're seeing the most scale, I think, especially from initial use cases. I think for a tool that we're building for audience simulation, it's more about the impact and downstream impact, or downstream effects that we want to have. So we're a massive organization, and I would say the lion's share of our content, it's hard to test every piece of content before it goes out to market. So how can we create economies of scale and build tools that allow us to test and get at least a basic read on some of the KPIs that we think are going to be impactful? And then how do we scale that to everyone in the organization against audiences that we're intentionally trying to reach? Because we're not the largest marketers in the world. We're probably one of the smaller ones based on our company size, but we're trying to be very tactical and take a very intentional approach to what we're doing.
Skyler Mattson:
What types of KPIs are you using specifically?
Aniz Ruda:
I think for content, so right now, tactically, we're looking at are people engaging with the content? Are they watching it, viewing it, et cetera? And then we're trying to see how that from a very optimization level, starts to ladder up into the bigger impacts that we're looking for, things like brand lift. For our campaigns, really connected more to ROI and driving patient volume. So we're trying to look at the attribution effect of some of these downstream impacts and downstream metrics that we're looking at.
Skyler Mattson:
That's so important, the measurement. I think a lot of times you just start using things, and there's speed and there's scale, but the measurement of engagement.
Aniz Ruda:
Yes.
Skyler Mattson:
And the quality of the content and then the ultimate brand lift that comes with that is such a crucial part.
Aniz Ruda:
Yes.
Skyler Mattson:
What are some of the biggest challenges you're seeing with your internal teams using AI?
Aniz Ruda:
I think there's some hesitation still to have AI make the big decisions or do some of the heavy lifting for our teams. I think a lot of people still feel that it's proprietary to them, or this is the value I add versus exploring how to get it done in AI. I often joke with people. At an ANA event, they said, what's the thing you're looking forward to in AI? And I said, I want AI to replace me. Come take my job. Like, I don't want to work anymore. I'm sure many people don't. So I like.
Skyler Mattson:
Some people are threatened by this.
Aniz Ruda:
I'm not. I welcome it.
Skyler Mattson:
Others are like, let me sit back and have my agent do this.
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah. I'm like, bring it on, AI. Come take my job.
Skyler Mattson:
Yeah, we've got a yacht to get on. So. Yes.
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So I feel like trying to figure out what it is that I do every day, and I'm doing a terrible job of it myself, but I do want my teams to get a little more comfortable with using it in ways that creates more time for them to breathe or have work-life balance, or have the benefits of someone else kind of augmenting some of the work that you're doing.
Skyler Mattson:
I love it when AI can take over these admin tasks and these busy tasks, and then free up that time for more innovative thinking, more creative output, more time with your family which helps you be more innovative and put out a better creative outputs.
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah, yeah. Just personally, I always struggle with should I be taking notes on pen and paper, or should I be typing it into something? So now I just take a picture of it, put it into AI, it organizes it for me, sometimes adds a little more context based on the prompt that I'm giving it. And now I can share it with my team. So things like that, I'm just trying to figure out how I can start doing a little more intelligently.
Skyler Mattson:
Fantastic. And one final question for you. What is something you're most excited about in terms of AI? Besides it completely taking over your job.
Aniz Ruda:
Oh, yeah, okay.
Skyler Mattson:
So you can be on a yacht all day, every day.
Aniz Ruda:
I guess the maturity and adoption of it. I think there's a lot of growth for commercial use. I feel like right now it's either really futuristic or it's very technical. And I feel like people are still trying to get established with it. So I'm curious, is there going to be a consolidation? Is this like search, where now there's no more like Yahoo's not dominant, and it's just Bing and Google. Those are the types of things that I'm really curious to see.
Skyler Mattson:
Me too. Thank you so much.
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah. Thanks.
Skyler Mattson:
It's been really interesting talking with you.
Aniz Ruda:
Yeah. This was great.
Skyler Mattson:
Thank you.
