From Clean Data to AI-Driven Advantage

On the 58th episode of Enterprise AI Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser and Saam Motamedi talk with Jaime Montemayor, Chief Digital & Technology Officer at General Mills. With a portfolio of household brands and operations spanning global markets, General Mills is both a legacy CPG powerhouse and a modern digital enterprise. Under Jaime’s leadership, the company is rewriting how food is produced, distributed, and marketed, with AI playing a central role at every level of the transformation.

Jaime’s approach is built on two key enablers: a cloud-native infrastructure and a pristine data foundation. “We’re now 100 percent cloud-run,” he shared, “and that’s allowed us to scale AI capabilities across commercial, supply chain, and innovation workflows”. His team started with strategic revenue management, optimizing pricing, promotions, and distribution using ML-driven recommendations. From there, they expanded into supply chain orchestration, deploying predictive analytics and automation to manage over 5,000 daily shipments across plants and warehouses.

Waste reduction became a fast win. General Mills implemented ML solutions to pinpoint inefficiencies across manufacturing lines, unlocking significant cost savings. “We're focused on improving sensors and digital signals across our factories. With better data, we can mine more insight and waste less,” said Jaime. These models do not just alert, they act. They help orchestrate decisions across the supply chain in real time.

The organization’s next leap came with generative AI. Within weeks of GPT-3’s release, Jaime’s team launched an internal foundation called MillsChat. Initially piloted for individual productivity, the tool was scaled across the 30,000-person workforce. “Some functions, like HR, now see adoption rates as high as 75 percent,” Jaime noted. Everyday use cases include drafting performance assessments and development plans. But the most exciting frontier lies ahead: agent-based architectures designed to automate full business workflows.

Jaime is quick to emphasize that none of this is possible without organizational alignment. “We have strategic clarity,” he said. “Our strategy—Accelerate—defines which consumers we serve, which platforms we build, and which capabilities matter. Digital and technology are named explicitly”. His teams operate on defined value propositions, and the finance team tracks every AI investment for impact.

Personally, Jaime leads by example. He tests new tools first, uses MillsChat daily, and sets the tone for experimentation. “As a tech leader, you need to be the best user of technology,” he advised. “Get involved. Touch it. Use it. Then bring the business along with you”.

Looking ahead, Jaime is bullish on agent-based AI and edge computing. He believes we will soon interact with systems entirely through voice. But he also sees a broader obligation for companies like General Mills: to close the loop between consumer signals and enterprise response. “If we can shorten the time between consumer need and product delivery, we can lead,” he said. “And that is the real power of AI.”

Listen to Jaime’s episode here and read the transcript here.

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