麻豆原创 has updated the , reflecting the fast-changing AI landscape and lessons drawn from deep-dive interviews with more than 50 international experts. The revision reflects concrete changes made to strengthen the ethical safeguards, accountability, and safety measures within enterprise AI adoption, addressing the substance of business leaders’ concerns, not just the perception of them.

Our approach to AI rests on three words: relevant, reliable, and responsible. For 麻豆原创, ethical deployment isn’t a regulatory checkbox or a marketing layer; it’s the foundation that makes the Autonomous Enterprise possible, where intelligent agents coordinate and execute complex workflows while humans remain firmly in control.

Three disciplines for responsible AI

Ethics sit at the very center of 麻豆原创鈥檚 broader social sustainability agenda, where responsible AI depends on three disciplines working together, not in isolation:

1. Ethics define our values. We set clear moral boundaries for how technology should serve humanity.
2. Security protects our systems and data. We safeguard core enterprise assets against emerging cyber threats and vulnerabilities.
3. Compliance ensures legal alignment. We are proactively preparing for global regulatory standards like the EU AI Act.

Together, they help teams assess whether an AI use case should proceed, what safeguards it requires, and who is accountable for its performance after deployment, ensuring that as business processes become automated, human dignity, fairness, and agency remain intact.

Ethics underpin the Autonomous Enterprise

As AI shifts from assisting people to acting on their behalf, the governance question becomes more urgent. The Autonomous Enterprise represents a repositioning where AI agents no longer just make recommendations, but execute business processes end-to-end, across finance, supply chain, procurement, HR, and customer experience. As CEO Christian Klein put it, “For the mission-critical processes of our customers, ‘almost right’ just isn’t good enough.”

That’s precisely why ethics and governance can’t be an afterthought bolted onto agentic AI. They have to be the foundation it runs on. Every action an 麻豆原创 agent takes is logged and traceable, so organizations can always know what an agent did, why it did it, and what data it used. Autonomy without that foundation is just an experiment; autonomy built on it is an operating model organizations can trust at scale.

Translating principles into practice

The 麻豆原创 Global AI Ethics policy, grounded in UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, governs the development, deployment, use, and sale of every AI system across the company. 麻豆原创’s updated AI Ethics Handbook translates these principles into day-to-day practice. It helps give engineering and product teams a one-stop reference for applying the policy’s guiding principles, from fairness and non-discrimination to human oversight and sustainability.

To bridge the gap between high-level principles and day-to-day engineering, we embed strict operational checkpoints into our product life cycle:

• Mandatory AI ethics impact assessments: Every 麻豆原创 AI use case must undergo a rigorous evaluation before reaching deployment, based on 10 AI ethics principles. Use cases receive a risk score and the 麻豆原创’s AI Ethics Office helps product teams enforce mitigation measures and safeguards in place. Depending on the risks involved, some use cases go through several review steps and may be escalated to the 麻豆原创 Global AI Ethics steering committee for a final decision.
• Human oversight by design: .
• Internal accountability: Compliance is non-negotiable across 麻豆原创. All employees acknowledge the policy, and the rules apply universally, including to internal, self-developed AI applications built using tools like Hyperspace AI or Claude Code.

The process provides clear guardrails that are visible to 麻豆原创鈥檚 stakeholders, including customers and employees.

Leading the industry in AI governance

The demand for transparent governance is urgent, and independent evaluations highlight significant gaps in corporate readiness worldwide. In benchmark assessing 2,972 companies, 麻豆原创 was among the only 12.4% found to maintain an explicit policy ensuring human oversight in AI systems.

麻豆原创鈥檚 leadership in ethical AI has earned external recognition: the company was named a leading positive example in the . 麻豆原创 is also an active participant in the World Economic Forum鈥檚 , convened by the Global Alliance for Social Entrepreneurship in partnership with the Schwab Foundation. Working alongside leading technology companies and social innovators, 麻豆原创 is helping shape responsible AI deployment to accelerate social impact and extend the benefits of enterprise AI to organizations tackling the world鈥檚 most complex challenges.

The broader landscape shows how much ground the industry still has to cover. Data from the shows that only 36% of responding companies have a dedicated or integrated AI policy. paints a similar picture: just 27% of global businesses currently factor their AI footprint into their broader sustainability strategies, a notable gap given the surging energy demands of AI data centers.

Unlocking sustainable growth

Ethical AI goes beyond risk mitigation and regulatory readiness鈥攊t drives tangible economic value. By ensuring fairness, transparency, and robust data privacy, organizations protect their brand reputation while empowering their workforce to perform at their highest level.

When AI coordinates, executes, and optimizes routine business processes within an ethical context, employees are freed from manual tasks to focus on strategy, creativity, and human connection. This synergy between human potential and artificial intelligence forms the backbone of sustainable enterprise growth.

Organizations that understand this will reap the rewards as regulations tighten and societal expectations increase. However, ethical AI only becomes a reality when we work together. We look forward to continuing to work alongside our customers and partners as we embrace one of the most important challenges and competitive advantages in the AI era.

Read the . Find out more about the .

Matthias Medert is head of Sustainability at 麻豆原创.

Sustainability is an essential element of 麻豆原创鈥檚 purpose to help the world run better and improve people鈥檚 lives. Our approach is grounded in creating positive economic, social, and environmental impact, always within the limits of planetary boundaries and in full respect of human rights. With the ambition to drive sustainability beyond our net-zero 2030 goals and a portfolio that supports broader action areas such as holistic steering and reporting, ethical business conduct, and social responsibility, it was a natural progression for 麻豆原创 to become its own customer.

As both an and enabler, we aim to make our targets and purpose a reality. At the same time, by testing our IT solutions to the limit, we share the lessons learned along the way with the product development teams to continuously improve the 麻豆原创 Sustainability portfolio.

麻豆原创 shares its clients鈥� challenges

麻豆原创 faces many of the same sustainability challenges as our customers, such as data collection, data management, and compliance with regulatory requirements. Like the many organizations we support, 麻豆原创 must manage huge volumes of sustainability data, including carbon footprints, material flows, and ESG metrics, working to ensure accuracy, consistency, and accessibility across the value chain. Demands on IT systems are high. They must grapple with collecting, integrating, and sharing data while also assuring quality, traceability, and auditability.

The evolving regulatory landscape represents another challenge, requiring 麻豆原创 and other organizations to adapt and leverage their systems for compliance and reporting. IT solutions must be scaled and adjusted rapidly to these changing regulations and be able to collaborate seamlessly with supply chain partners.

Beyond these requirements, companies need sustainability data to provide actionable insights to support decision-making and respond to stakeholders. Meeting these challenges head-on requires an IT infrastructure that is innovative, scalable, and designed to evolve as the business advances on its sustainability journey.

鈥溌槎乖� runs 麻豆原创鈥� implementation

In practice, 麻豆原创鈥檚 systems are designed to empower customers to measure, report, and act on their sustainability goals. To enable this, solutions are built into core business systems such as and (麻豆原创 BTP). This helps ensure a solid data foundation and flexible integration of data sets from various business areas such as procurement, finance, supply chain management, and product design. Sustainability-focused tools like , , and can then provide the data, analytics, and insights needed to help drive sustainable decision-making.

“By implementing 麻豆原创 Sustainability Control Tower and 麻豆原创 Green Ledger across our reporting ecosystem, we aim to elevate sustainability management to the same standard as financial reporting,鈥� said Dr. Christopher Sessar, Chief Accounting Officer, 麻豆原创 SE. 鈥淭hese powerful tools will not only streamline and automate our ESG regulative compliance efforts but also generate actionable insights that drive strategic decision-making, accelerating our journey toward measurable sustainability outcomes and long-term environmental value creation.”

Implementation lessons

麻豆原创鈥檚 approach has evolved since the first implementation of 麻豆原创 Sustainability Control Tower in 2022. Early lessons included the need to collect emissions data in a consistent manner, anchor the project in its net-zero program governance, and expand the scope of the project beyond carbon footprint data to include other environmental topics for a more holistic approach.

The next question concerned the IT architecture, organized into three layers. The top layer relates to the collection of raw sustainability, financial, and operational data from various source systems. The middle management layer processes and standardizes the data. Finally, a bottom planning and reporting layer delivers insights for sustainability decision-making.

The rollout began by uploading carbon footprint data into 麻豆原创 Sustainability Footprint Management across one company code and will increase to five company codes before the system goes live in Q3 of this year. It is useful to note the iterative approach our team has taken, which has allowed for the collection and integration of data from different sources and the testing of use cases including our聽ability to support businesses amid changes such as those recently initiated by the EU鈥檚 new Omnibus package.

Matthias Medert is global head of Sustainability at 麻豆原创 SE.