900 GenAI Projects Down, J&J Says This Is How You Scale

By mid-2022, Johnson & Johnson was already deep into the generative AI boom. The company embraced an open-ended approach which CIO Jim Swanson called a “let a thousand flowers bloom” strategy giving employees across R&D, commercial, HR, and supply chain teams the freedom to propose and build GenAI use cases. A centralized governance board evaluated and greenlit nearly 900 projects, ranging from internal productivity bots to experimental drug development tools. That phase is now officially over. Swanson, Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Johnson & Johnson, said the company has since pivoted from widespread experimentation to a focused, value-driven model. “That was a pivot we made after about a year of learning,” he said. “Now we’ve move