Six multinational innovation leaders unveil practical guide helping R&D teams scale generative AI, unlock data value and accelerate breakthrough innovation across food and consumer sectors.
Senior innovation executives from Mars and PepsiCo have joined leaders from Amcor, Bayer Crop Science, Stepan and Procter & Gamble to launch a generative AI (GenAI) playbook aimed at transforming research and development (R&D) across the food and wider innovation sectors.
Developed through a six-month CTO Forum led by UK-based R&D consultancy Sagentia, the initiative brings together real-world experience from global innovation teams to address a central challenge: how organisations can move beyond efficiency gains and use GenAI to deliver breakthrough innovation.
The Generative AI Playbook for R&D is now available as an open-source industry resource.
From efficiency gains to breakthrough innovation
With R&D teams under growing pressure to demonstrate measurable returns on digital investment, Forum participants shared practical use cases, outcomes and lessons learned. Their work focused on three core questions: where GenAI fits within R&D’s broader digital transformation, which challenges it can solve most effectively, and how organisations can implement the technology successfully at scale.
The playbook outlines ten guiding principles to help R&D leaders balance ambition with practical execution as GenAI adoption matures. Key success factors include ensuring data readiness, prioritising high-value use cases and maintaining strong user engagement – often cited as the most significant barrier to implementation.
Participants found that securing early wins is critical to building organisational confidence, enabling teams to progress from basic task automation towards more creative and complex applications capable of tackling higher-value innovation challenges.
Dan Edwards, CEO of Sagentia, said:
GenAI is driving a step-change in how R&D operates – but many organisations struggle to move from efficiency gains to breakthrough applications. Our Playbook provides actionable guidance to help leaders navigate this journey with confidence. The keys to success are to focus on value creation, preparing your data effectively, and critically, bringing your people with you.”
Alongside the playbook, Sagentia has introduced two services to support organisations adopting GenAI. A benchmarking service enables companies to compare their progress against peers, while a second helps R&D teams prioritise which innovation challenges are best suited to GenAI solutions.
The open-source playbook is now available to download, helping R&D leaders accelerate practical, value-driven adoption of generative AI across innovation functions.
