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Stay on top of the latest business innovations and help support quality journalism. Sign up for a subscription today. To remind you, our annual plan works out to a monthly rate of €24.99+ VAT. It will give you access to a archive of over 1000 independently reported stories and some 200 new ones in 2023.

Enjoy this week's issue,

Innovator Founder and Editor-in-Chief Jennifer L. Schenker

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How Corporates Are Trying To Unlock Value From Generative AI

While JPMorgan Chase announced this week that it is restricting employee use of the ChatGPT AI-powered chatbot, other corporates are starting to experiment with generative AI, with an eye to developing new business models, according to a new report from BCG Henderson Institute, Boston Consulting Group’s think tank.

The think tank is advising companies to experiment with use cases that go beyond short-term productivity gains.

“In a world where automated systems are increasingly being used to provide basic capabilities, company leaders should be innovative and strategic in their use of Generative AI,” concludes the report.“They also need to keep in mind that the ultimate outcome of experimentation is business model innovation. Competitive advantage awaits those that go beyond simple tweaking—and that identify business models not previously possible.”

Read on to learn more about this story and the week's most important technology news impacting business.

How Corporates Are Combining The E & S in ESG

H&M is giving circular buttons a whole new meaning.

Waste pickers in India sell plastic waste recovered from the streets of Bengaluru to Hasiru Dala Innovations (HDI) a social enterprise. HDI supplies button manufacturers with the fair trade guaranteed plastic waste; the manufacturers then turn it into buttons with 40% recycled plastic that the H&M Group’s apparel makers buy and attach to clothing sold worldwide.

Over 150 million of the round fasteners have already been sewn onto clothing sold by H&M. The circular buttons are traceable down to the source of the waste along with names of the workers, their salaries and working conditions at HDI’s aggregation center.

It is just one example of how HDI is working with large companies to both further social inclusion and enable the circular economy.

“The E and S in ESG [Environmental, Social and Governance] need to be intertwined,” says Shekar Prabhakar, HDI’s co-founder and CEO. “A lot of companies are looking at recycled plastic in products. The E is easily addressable but rather than solving only for the environment why not work for a just transition?”

Jim Adler, Toyota Ventures

Who: Jim Adler is the founder and a general partner of Toyota Ventures, responsible for setting the strategic direction and leading the firm’s investment activities. In addition to serving on the board of directors for Toyota Ventures, he also serves as an executive advisor at Toyota Research Institute (TRI). Adler, an electrical and computer engineer by training, joined Toyota Ventures from TRI, where he served as vice president of data and business development. Prior to that, Adler founded a startup and worked for several others. He also worked as a rocket engineer at Lockheed Martin. He is scheduled to speak on a panel about corporate venturing moderated by The Innovator’s Editor-in-Chief at the 4YFN conference in Barcelona Feb. 28.

Topic: The best way for corporates to work with startups

Quote: "It comes down to understanding what startups can bring and what they can’t. If they are at an early stage, they help you look at disruptive innovation. Think of them as a telescope into the future. If they are later stage or growth stage, they are more like binoculars into the near future. Corporates need to understand the difference and remember that startups are like stem cells: you never know what they are going to become."

India’s Sea6Energy, a member of the World Economic Forum’s UpLink Innovators community, makes novel products from sea plants for use in agriculture, aquaculture, food ingredients, renewable chemicals, bio plastics and biofuels. Customers include Norwegian chemical company Yara international, Summit Agro, a subsidiary of Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation Group that focuses on plant protection, and FMC, a U.S. agriculture company.

“We believe we can actually move away from the fossil fuel economy and make sea plant- based fuels, plastics, chemicals and agricultural products that don’t need land or fresh water to be sustainable and scalable,” says co-founder and chief business officer Sowmya Balendiran.

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$3.9 Billion

Amount of money Amazon paid to acquire an operator of primary-care clinics. The deal, which closed this week, may represent Amazon's biggest foray into healthcare after previous attempts to disrupt the market, reports the Wall Street Journal.

The acquisition of 1Life Healthcare, which operates a primary-care practice under the name One Medical, gives Amazon access to dozens of medical offices in more than 20 U.S. markets, as well as deals with thousands of companies to provide health benefits to employees through in-person and virtual care.

One Medical has billed itself as a modern health service that can make it easier to access health services. The company says it offers same- and next-day in-office or remote visits that it can pair with on-demand virtual care through its mobile or Web app.

What The Most Productive Companies Do Differently
Harvard Business Review

What Challenges To Look Out For Now That The Era Of Connected Devices Have Arrived
World Economic Forum

Consumers Care About Sustainability And Back It Up With Their Wallets
McKinsey

4YFN, February 27-March 2, Barcelona, Spain

SXSW March 10 -19, Austin, Texas

EPFL Conference On Software Supply Chain Security, March 30, Lausanne, Switzerland

Viva Tech, June 14-17, 2023, Paris, France

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