Talking AI Transformation on the IKEA Podcast

In a career highlight, I recently appeared on the IKEA podcast filmed in their head office in Älmhult, talking about AI Transformation.

This was only a little bit daunting given their global excellence in Digital and AI Transformation - yet with a shared passion and background in retail, ecommerce and AI it was a rich conversation with host global PR lead for Tech and AI, Dani Hooper. Find the episode here.

Myself and Kat Wirth get ready for the real thing with Dani Hooper from IKEA (Ingka Holdings)

Here are some of my top tips for business leaders and AI practitioners to ensure transformation is both effective and sustainable.

1. Integration over Isolation

One of the most common mistakes in AI transformation is treating it as an AI team problem where specialists are isolated in a corner. My personal experience has shown how ineffective a change team can be if they sit in a corner, you have to be ‘it it’. I shared the nickname we were given in my Unilever days - a jack in the box. When I worked in digital commerce dfuring the pandemic, speed was key, so we appeared in many town halls and team meetings so everyone in the business would work with us. 

AI will impact your whole business. If it’s to serve the whole business it can’t exist in a vacuum. 

2. Be an AI-Powered Leadership Team

Transformation begins with leadership. While leaders do not need to be technical visionaries, they require a foundational level of AI literacy to effectively lead. Once leaders understand the basics, they can have more informed conversations, have more accurate expectations and better challenge accuracy.

3. Prioritise Problems, Not Technology

Businesses often fall into the trap of building tools, like chatbots, simply because the technology is available. I have always started with inspiration and skills - I remember running a session at Diageo and getting such varied and excited ideas for AI use afterward because the Sustainability team saw they would use it one way and the category team saw another opportunity.

Before leading with the technology (and measuring usage, wrong metric!) start with the business problems and challenges everyone is tackling right now. This is far easier than starting with the technology and looking for a place to use it - it’s also by definition valuable. As I said to Dani, I challenge anyone working in this space to get just as excited about the problems it should be solving? In my work I start with quick wins, those well known daily challenges that are not very complex but everyone would agree is useful.

4. Fire Up the "AI Changemakers"

Beyond leadership, a successful transformation requires an AI-literate culture across the entire organisation. I turned my approach into a programme  "AI Changemakers" where those early adopters, passionate employees lead get the opportunity to drive change in their function. It’s a structured approach and it is not the same as the AI champions role where many people are given greater responsibility but not the necessary support. This bottom-up approach helps identify real-world challenges while building internal confidence through practical application.

5. Aim for Augmentation, Not Automation

When it comes to large and complex organisations, I am a fan of augmentation over automation. Augmentation is more democratic and can be a way of working that scales quickly. There is trapped talent in every organisation often buried under administrative work of work. This moment gives us the opportunity to redesign processes - employees should be part of this - reshaping their roles to see that they are freed to focus on high-value tasks like strategy and human connection.

6. Trust and Security are Competitive Advantages

In the rush to adopt AI, there is a danger businesses may sacrifice their heritage or risk customer trust. In my opinion, there is only one way to use AI, and that’s safely and securely. How to do that in an oragnisation is not with one AI policy sitting on Sharepoint. The business needs to live and breathe safety and security - role modelled by leaders - and as I saw in Ikea’s HQ, made visible constantly ideally with digital billboards. 

The irony is that established companies can have an advantage versus the newer tech companies here - they’re established, often well-loved as well as well-known. Personally I think such retailers should lean into this heritage and do all they can to maintain the trust they have built over decades - its a significant advantage.

7. Embrace the Resistors

Trust me, resistance when driving change can be relentless. It shows up in many ways - overt challenges from vocal team members or more subtle resistance in the pace to try, change or adopt. I have found resistors can be strategically valuable. AI is a contentious topic - we need to be able to listen and answer peoples concerns. Equally, there is work to be done around these concerns whether they be linked to risks, bias, the environment. 

My belief is that AI can be a catalyst for transformation. Rather than react and rush, we can ask "What do we actually want to achieve?". Then it's about gathering your best people, building the expertise and going after the goals that matter.

Lead by Example. Aim High.

What an honour to have this conversation with a global, iconic brand who is one of the best examples of a values-driven, innovative organisation. You see AI in my mind should be behind the scenes of simply great business moves.

For instance, Billie, the IKEA Chatbot helped IKEA with 47% of customer queries - but studiying the other 53% opened up new revenues streams. IKEA reskilled 8,500 customer care teams in interior design to offer this services to callers.

With core pillars around Affordability, Accessibility, and Circularity, IKEA have heavily investing in lowering retail prices and created instore Circular Hubs to enable a secondhand furniture buyback scheme. They react to the times and are innovative. Like any large organisation they need to make difficult decisions such as restructuring central management for greater speed and agility in response to economic pressures - AI is often blamed for this, but its emergence has convened with volatile economy.

As Ingka's Chief People & Culture Officer Ulrika Biesert has said "people have been at the heart of IKEA for over 80 years, and that's exactly where they'll stay." Having met such innovative, welcoming and humble people on my trip, I can see why.

AI Transformation starts and ends with people. I hope we can all take a proactive approach thats good for both people and business.