Mars is a family-owned business with more than a century of history making diverse products and offering services for people and the pets people love. With over $47 billion in sales, the company is a global business that produces some of the world’s best-loved brands: Ben’s Original™, M&M’s®, SNICKERS®, TWIX®, MILKY WAY®, PEDIGREE®, ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS®, EXTRA®, ORBIT®, 5™, SKITTLES®, and COCOAVIA®. Mars also provides veterinary health services, including BANFIELD® Pet Hospitals, Blue Pearl®, VCA® and Pet Partners™. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars operates in more than 80 countries. The Mars Five Principles – Quality, Responsibility, Mutuality, Efficiency and Freedom – inspire its more than 140,000 Associates to create value for all its partners and deliver growth they are proud of daily.
Carol Van Den Hende, Global AI Officer at Mars, said “Artificial intelligence has enormous potential to help companies become more efficient and productive, and to work at unprecedented scales and speed. For Mars, AI is already helping us predict whether cats and dogs could develop chronic kidney disease; speeding up sequencing of pet genomes to provide individualized nutrition and care; and unlocking efficiencies in our manufacturing operations through digital twin technology.
At the same time, if it’s not used responsibly, AI—particularly generative AI—poses significant legal, ethical and business risks. Generative AI can have significant unintended consequences if used without proper governance and supervision.
Using generative AI responsibly is nonnegotiable for Mars. We must use it in a way that is fair, inclusive and sustainable, and it also must protect the privacy and security of our people, our consumers and our partners. We have established an enterprise working team to create a strong framework of policies and governance around the use of generative AI, and we are also working with technology partners like Microsoft and NGOs like the Responsible AI Institute.”
“We are well positioned to collaborate with Mars on implementing responsible AI across its policies and practice. Mars is such an innovative presence in our everyday lives, and its commitment to optimizing automated systems is an exemplary and auspicious move not only for the future of AI, but also for the future of consumer health,” said Var Shankar, Executive Director at Responsible AI Institute.
About The RAI Institute
The Responsible AI Institute (RAI Institute) is a global and member-driven non-profit dedicated to enabling successful responsible AI efforts in organizations. The RAI Institute’s conformity assessments and certifications for AI systems support practitioners as they navigate the complex landscape of AI products.
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