AI-enabled innovation
I led a 3-week discovery and alignment sprint for a global food and beverage R&D organisation exploring how AI could optimise product development and collaboration.
The goal was to align executives and cross-functional teams around a shared vision for AI-enabled R&D, by identifying where AI could drive efficiency, creativity, and innovation.
Organisation
Global Food & Beverage leader
My role
Service Design
Timeline
3 weeks
My approach
Lean discovery and analysis
Reviewed existing R&D journey maps and documentation to surface known pain points. Conducted targeted interviews with scientists and managers to uncover daily friction, collaboration gaps, and opportunities for AI to add value.
Industry scanning and storytelling
Explored AI use cases across global R&D and innovation labs. Created concise visual examples to make complex technologies tangible and inspire forward-thinking discussion.
Collaborative visioning workshops
Facilitated high-energy, remote workshops with R&D leaders and cross-functional teams. Activities included As-Is mapping, How-Might-We framing, persona creation, ideation, and future-state mapping to define priority opportunities.
Synthesis and executive alignment
Synthesised outputs into a clear narrative and future-state vision deck. Partnered with a designer to visualise experience maps and authored a business case linking AI opportunities to measurable KPIs.
Outcome
Defined how agentic workflows, modular content, and AI orchestration layers could enable faster, smarter formulation design
Delivered a future-state vision that secured executive buy-in and informed a business case for an MVP
Identified high-value opportunities to streamline workflows and strengthen collaboration
Elevated leadership’s understanding of AI as a driver of innovation
Created artefacts that aligned executives and accelerated decision-making
“This vision is exactly what we hoped for and is going to bring valuable change to the R&D team globally.” — Client feedback
