There was a time when technology companies sold their wares to others while running their own operations on instinct, spreadsheets and whatever the chief financial officer happened to prefer. That time, it appears, is over — at least at IBM, which has taken to describing itself as "client zero" for its own artificial intelligence products.
Jonathan Adashek, the senior vice president of marketing and communications at IBM, outlined the approach in a recent conversation at the Cannes Lions festival, offering what amounted to a progress report on the company's internal experiments with the technology it has been urging everyone else to adopt.
The numbers Mr. Adashek cited were not small. IBM claims to have saved $4.5 billion over three years by applying artificial intelligence to its own processes — a figure that, if accurate, would represent a meaningful validation of the sales pitch the company has been making to chief executives across industries.
(Whether "client zero" sounds more like a vote of confidence or a Centers for Disease Control designation is perhaps in the ear of the beholder.)
Among the more concrete changes: IBM now stages half as many marketing events as it did two years ago. Mr. Adashek did not say whether the reduction was greeted with mourning or quiet relief by the employees who once staffed them.
Mr. Adashek joined IBM in January 2020 as chief communications officer and added the marketing portfolio two years later — a consolidation of responsibilities that has become increasingly common as companies seek to present what executives like to call a unified narrative. His background, notably, is in communications and politics rather than traditional brand marketing.
The "client zero" concept is not new to technology companies, which have long understood that the most persuasive case study is often the one they can discuss without a nondisclosure agreement. What may be newer is the willingness to attach specific dollar figures to the experiment.
Whether other companies will find the medicine as agreeable remains, as always, their own affair.
Original story published in adweek.com: "Marketing Vanguard at Cannes: How IBM Became Its Own AI Case Study ft. Jonathan Adashek"