Many HR practitioners are seeking success stories around new tech rollouts. Here’s one that illustrates how Mars, Inc., a U.S.-based company founded in 1911, is making strides in agentic AI adoption.
From data silos to institutional connectivity
The org employs about 150,000 people, operates in over 80 countries and manages 50+ brands across food, snacks and petcare. The company recently announced that it is deploying Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise as its primary AI operating system for employees worldwide, a rollout the company frames less as a technology upgrade and more as a fundamental change to how its workforce operates.
The recently announced partnership gives Mars employees (called Associates, internally) access to no-code and low-code tools to build their own AI agents tailored to their specific roles The goal, Mars says, is to turn decades of institutional knowledge trapped in data silos into something every employee can actually use.
For HR leaders watching how large enterprises are structuring AI adoption, the Mars model offers a concrete blueprint to an alternative to deploying AI as a top-down productivity mandate, as the company is positioning the move as a capability employees themselves can shape and direct.
“Our digital investments at Mars enable unlocking the potential of our Associates,” said Marina F. Bellini, global head of digital technologies at Mars and president at Mars Global Services, in a release.
Read more | Sabotage, silence and strategy ‘built for show’: 5 AI adoption myths
What HR leaders should pay attention to
The workforce design question embedded in Mars’ approach is one many CHROs haven’t fully answered yet: When employees can build their own AI tools, who governs what gets built?
Deloitte’s latest State of AI in the Enterprise report helps situate Mars on the broader adoption curve. Workforce access to sanctioned AI tools has jumped by about 50% in a year. This is up from under 40% of workers to roughly 60% now, as companies move from pilots to enterprise‑scale deployments.
Deloitte’s companion analysis on agentic AI finds adoption is racing ahead of oversight as only 21% of surveyed enterprises say they have mature governance in place for AI agents, even as usage is expected to rise sharply, with 74% of organizations forecasting at least moderate use of AI agents by 2027.
That gap reinforces why Mars’ emphasis on governance features is not just a technical detail but a differentiator in how it designs work. Mars says Gemini Enterprise’s governance features ensure every agent created across its petcare, snacking and food and nutrition segments is secure, compliant and consistent with company principles.
“This unified platform puts us in a great position to put business solutions at the core with technology as the enabler,” said Gülen Bengi, lead global chief marketing officer at Mars Incorporated and global chief growth officer at Mars Snacking. “We see incredible potential in our partnership as we bring solutions like One Demand AI to Mars—accelerating our growth pillars of innovation, brand building and end-to-end sales execution.”
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