Conagra Brands takes an employee-led approach to develop new skills with Microsoft Copilot

Ale Eboli, Executive Vice President, Chief Supply Chain & Transformation Officer at Conagra Brands, knows that Conagra is not a typical company. “We are touching people’s lives on a daily basis,” he says. “Every day, we produce and distribute thousands of different products, sourced from more than 30 manufacturing facilities across our network.” Among those products are some iconic brand names, recognizable from grocery store shelves and kitchens across the country, such as Orville Redenbacher’s, Birds Eye, Hunt’s, Marie Callender’s, and Slim Jim.

Conagra has a well-established culture of embracing technology in service of its customers. It’s not surprising, then, that the business has launched a major initiative to bring the transformative capabilities of AI to every area of the business.

“Conagra has always been about innovation and agility,” says Tracy Schaefer, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Conagra Brands. “We know that now is the right time to maximize our AI journey because our people embody the agility and curiosity that are key attributes for embracing AI.”

A grassroots initiative grows rapidly

Schaefer sees the CIO’s role as cutting through the “hype” to identify technology that delivers real business value. In a company-wide initiative, she and other Conagra leaders framed AI as a practical, everyday technology. The initiative included a series of training events, dubbed AI + Data Day, which attracted standing-room-only crowds and showcased real-world use-cases. Peer-led, hands-on demonstrations reinforced clear messaging: AI at Conagra is meant to empower employees.

“We were very clear in communicating that AI is a capability that helps our people work smarter and more efficiently,” says Schaefer. One session on prompt engineering had an especially big impact. Brian Archey, Vice President of Demand Science at Conagra Brands, explains. “We had people representing a broad cross-section of teams and technical backgrounds, from very technical to not technical at all, coming in and seeing that there was no great mystery to prompt engineering. They were able to ask questions and lean in.”

Training sessions and hackathons, held in partnership with Microsoft, helped use-cases take shape, says Schaefer. “Initial demonstrations around using Microsoft Copilot for personal productivity led to new ideas for specific use cases across business units, for instance content creation or helping drive better productivity in our plants,” she says. As AI + Data Day enters its second year, core employee groups such as plant managers are progressing from introductory “100-level” courses to more advanced training on Copilot Studio. Today, 120 Active AI Champions across Conagra are completing advanced Copilot trainings and a total of 1,300 employees have been trained through AI + Data Day events, with a goal to train all 15,000 employees on the level of AI appropriate for their role.

Tying security to innovation with foundational governance

Conagra also laid the foundation for successful implementation through preparation, education, observability, and governance. “First and foremost, we had to address security,” says Schaefer. “Laying the foundation of proper governance, observability, and responsible AI was our first step to engaging our employees with AI. To do that, we built a SteerCo to review risk factors, access, and identity management.”

When it comes to AI, Archey sees governance and trust as two sides of the same coin. “I don't think you can have AI access without having a group of people really focused on making sure that we're getting the correct answers and we're being proactive to ensure we are using Copilot it in an ethical way,” he says.

Moving from training to application

While excitement for AI grows across the organization, Eboli and his team use the new tools to build on years of technology innovation in the supply chain area. Says Eboli, “Our systems are all talking to each other already. When you layer in AI, we can move faster and take action—allowing our sites to be more efficient, generating less waste and making better products for our consumers.” Tapping into the precision possible with AI, Eboli and his team gain real-time insight into product availability. Similarly, Conagra uses AI to address supply chain issues more quickly, in some cases resolving problems in minutes rather than days. “There is an incredible amount of value that is created by being precise in addressing the problem,” says Eboli.

Eboli adds that leaders need to lead by example—using new tools to test assumptions and make decisions grounded in data. “Allowing the data to challenge your assumptions is the best way leaders can drive the spirit of implementation that we want with these new technologies,” he says. This intersection of people and technology is the crux of Conagra’s approach to becoming a frontier firm. “The ones who are going to win in AI, they aren't the ones with the best technology. They are going to be the ones with the best people,” says Schaefer. “We have proven through our change management efforts that we have a group of employees who are so enthusiastic about learning AI. That gives me confidence that we're going to be winners in this new era of AI.”

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