A.O. Smith

Almost $20 trillion in revenue—and a record-breaking $1.87 trillion in profits. Introducing the 2025 Fortune 500, the definitive list of the biggest companies in America.

Fortune 500

The Fortune 500, in its 70th year in 2024, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

The Fortune 500, in its 69th year in 2023, ranks the biggest U.S. companies by revenue.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 67th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 66th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 65th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 64th running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 63rd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 62nd running of the list.

This year's Fortune 500 marks the 61st running of the list. Wal-Mart claims the top spot again. See who made the list.

Wal-Mart stayed on top as its sales crept closer to half-a-trillion dollars. Apple moved into the top five. And UnitedHealth Group continued its steady climb. 

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Earnings Per Share (last Fiscal Year)

Earnings Per Share ($)

EPS % Change (from prior fiscal year)

EPS % Change (5 year annual rate)

EPS % Change (10 year annual rate)

Total Return

Total Return to Investors (last year)

Total Return to Investors (5 year, annualized)

Total Return to Investors (10 year, annualized)

Get insights into A.O. Smith including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

A.O. Smith (AOS): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

a.o. smith

Companies

A.O. Smith | Fortune

A.O. Smith (AOS): Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Nine years into her tenure as CEO of British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Emma Walmsley is pressing forward on transforming health care. From discoveries in cancer drugs to new uses of AI in the field, the FTSE 100 CEO and No. 20 on Fortune’s 2025 Most Powerful Women ranking shares her outlook on the future of health care.

Inside GSK's Health Care Revolution

Conferences

I am so excited to be here, you know, after 35 years of often walking into a room, pretty much almost always in a minority and often as the only woman, I can't tell you how massively uplifting it is to be in a room and a room that looks like this. I mean, about time, but it's great, yeah. We're we're glad to have you and I guess this sort of uh counts as something of an exit interview. You have a few months left uh at the head of GSK, and you're staying on after the transition for as in an advisory role. um, why now? Why was now the time to, to leave, uh, to step down as CEO? Well, I think when you are deciding to move on from a company that you love as CEO, uh, there are a couple of things you hope for. First of all, that you can leave it in far better shape than when you began. And second of all, and I think it's really important sometimes, sometimes under recognized that you can prepare for the most seamless succession and transition possible to make sure that the company you love keeps accelerating. And you know, honestly, I'm really proud to be doing both. It was 9 years ago in September that I was asked to be. A major change agent for GSK and the company today is in a completely different position than it was then in terms of strategy and structure. We did, you know, one of the, I think the biggest demerger of a brand new consumer healthcare business. biggest demerger in Europe this century actually, which reset the balance sheet, allowed us to double our investment in R&D, which is the whole point of our industry to innovate, to come back to a position of major momentum in terms of performance. So we've repeatedly upgraded our outlooks. Uh, moved from the pure play by a pharma company to be just over 20 billion in revenue to more than 30 now, and with an outlet we've increased twice to be more than 40, material movement moved forward in profitability, but most importantly, We now have 15 major medicines and vaccines to be launched in the next few years. In oncology, we're back and winning in oncology, in respiratory, in HIV, in infectious diseases, in vaccines, and we're proud to be committed to that uh uh industry too, and perhaps above and beyond everything else. This is a company that is touching the lives of 2 billion people around the world today. So I think we've got great momentum in the business and great prospects, always more work to do in our, in our industry because patients are waiting. But 26 is a pivotal year with a lot more data coming through, and we now have to define the next chapter and I think it's really important. That the person who is going to deliver the next decade in frankly, the most exciting time and one ripe for disruption, necessary disruption in health, because the person that's going to deliver that um is the person who gets to define it. So I As I said, I was asked in September 2016 to take on the job, and in December 2016 was the first time that I started talking to Luke Miles, who will be succeeding me. And uh, I write a diary and not every day, but it's a wonderful thing to look back on, and that day I wrote down Found Luke Dream higher, and I didn't know quite, you know, what a great partner he was going to be, but I couldn't be more thrilled. I think he's the right person to take this on, and I'm really looking forward to. Applauding his in the broader team's successes as they continue to change lives around the world. So the answer is, it is not without emotion. I will definitely admit that, but it's the right time for the company and it's the right time for me too, you know, I've did 17 years at L'Oreal. I'll do 16 at GSK, and who knows what the next 15 are gonna take. Yeah, we're gonna get to that. Um, throughout your tenure, investors never seem like fully sold, um, or never really sort of. How much does that weigh on you, the stock price, you know, um, was it a factor in your decision making in terms of leaving? No, I think, um. First of all, it would be disingenuous to say that it doesn't matter, um, because we work. Let's remember, we work for patients. Of course, we work for shareholders. We're a public company, uh, and we also work for our people. I mean, we have 70,000 people in 80 countries around the world and, and I, our industry is possibly. The ultimate definition of the multi-stakeholder industry, including healthcare systems, healthcare providers, NGOs, GSK has topped the access to medicine indices worldwide, uh, I think 8 out of 9 years, um, you know, number one for providing access to this. So, so, as I said, we, we are proud of the scale of our impact and of championing the prevention of disease, um. Actually, you know, I try not to comment too much on the share price, particularly because in our industry it can be incredibly volatile due to external factors that I don't know, mass tort lawsuits for a drug that was launched when I was in high school, or obviously the current policy environment can be challenging as well. So you have to navigate through these things, but what, what, what I Uh, seek to do is measure our success in terms of the operating progress. I think we've had in the last 5 years at least 6 in-year upgrades to medium, uh, you know, that fact. Three medium and long term upgrades to our outlook, so we just keep doing what we say we're going to do, and I'm sure the recognition of the value will follow in due course, and I can't wait to see that happening, right, so you talk about some of the, the policies, of course, that are coming out of the Trump administration and one thing that the White House is really pressing drug companies for is to lower, lower drug prices, and we've seen the Pfizer and AstraZeneca strike deals is, um, where are you in conversations with the administration on that? Well, we see, I mean, first of all, if we just step back, we're a British company, but 2% of our sales are in the UK and 52% of them are in the US. Um, so you just have to make that, by the way, that was a deliberate choice I made coming in as CEO when I began, I think it was just about over a third of the business, but we invested because this is the superpower of the world. Today, today. Uh, in terms of innovation in healthcare and You know, whether it's the phenomenal academic institutions, at least historically the amount of funding that's gone into research, the amount of business development you can do in some of the most exciting cities in the world here, and we do more and more of our pipeline building as across the industry with business development, but it's also the market in the world where at least some of society gets access first. Uh, to the very best of innovation. And let's not forget that the value that we add in our industry is stopping disease in its tracks, and it's still an enormous amount of unmet need, whether that's in cancer or neurodegeneration or in respiratory disease and, in fact, still in infectious diseases. So, so our first priority is to innovate and this country is the country to innovate in. You want to bring down the demand curve on the health cost of healthcare, we need more innovation to keep people well and keep people out of hospital. No debate on that. So we bet on the US. A couple of weeks ago, I committed to 30 billion pounds worth of more investment in the US in the next 5 years, and that's an advanced R&D, AI enabled manufacturing. We broke ground earlier this year on a new site in Pennsylvania, and two weeks ago, I announced an additional one for advanced biotech manufacturing. So we are massively invested here and we are very constructively engaged with the administration at multiple levels. Um, you know, I'm not about to unveil the detail of those discussions, but make no mistake, we agree. That the American healthcare system needs reform. It is unfair and unsustainable. We agree there needs to be more sort of access in an affordable way to more Americans. To the drugs and vaccines that they need, and there's terrible inequity in the world in healthcare, but it is, you know, really difficult to see it in the richest country in the world. We also agree that more countries around the world, all countries around the world, including this one, should recognize the value of innovation to reduce the cost of healthcare. We talk a lot about drug pricing. It's only 14% of the total cost of the American healthcare system. And by the way, 90% of prescriptions in America are generic drugs that would not in volume, that would not exist if you didn't innovate first. So we have to bend that demand curve. We have to invest in people's wellness and not spend so much on sickness. And that's why I'm also, you know, very supportive of this investment of the sort of root causes of a deterioration in health and increasing comorbidities right through to diet and. Uh, you know, social, uh, demographic issues that we have to get more to the roots of in our community. So there's a lot we agree with. It's not as simple as the daily headline roulette, uh, would suggest, um, but, uh, I think, you know, a GSK. We talk about the purpose of the company being to combine science, tech, and human talent to get ahead of disease together, and we are an industry that needs more partnership and more collaboration than any other, and that includes between, you know, with positive and constructive engagement between industry and government. You did, you did mention uh vaccines, which is a part of your business. Some sales have been down. Um, in part, well, which sort of aligns with the growing skepticism of vaccines, what do you see as a pharmaceutical CEO's role in vaccine uptake and, and how are you sort of approaching some of the um. The current conversation around vaccines. Well, the first thing I would say is, um, we're definitely vaccines business of all three businesses is the smallest one, but it's an important one. Um, And we are more cautious about the outlook in the US in the rest of the world, just to be clear, vaccines businesses are growing extremely well. There is no better return on investment. No better return on investment than stopping disease before it even starts. Um, and you know, in this country, we spend $9 billion a year on vaccines the hospitalization costs of people with vaccines preventable diseases. The CDC recently published, um, uh, some data that showed over the last 30 years. This is basic, basic pediatric uh vaccination. Over 30 years, 500 million cases, um, uh, were prevented of disease, over 30 million hospitalizations and more than a million childhood deaths. You know, I will speak to you as a mom. Uh, in this closed context amongst friends, but last week, uh, I got that call. My youngest child is, um, in her freshman semester at university and I had a call from a slightly hysterical 18 year old roommate saying that she was in the emergency room. She's fine. Uh, we were in a different country. Uh, you go into that mother major mobilization mode, and all I could think honestly was how pleased I was I'd fought with her to get her meningitis vaccine done before she left to come to start her freshman year. And I say that as somebody who sat in high school next to a girl who died in her first term at university, age 19 of meningitis. I just say it because it's until you're in the moment. Because it's about stopping disease before it starts. It's about a hypothetical prevention of something that might happen. But my goodness, uh, it can matter. And history shows that when vaccination rates drop, Infections surge around the world, and then vaccination rates come back up. And As a mom, Uh, I don't and as a CEO of a vaccines manufacturer, you know, we can't just say to people, trust us when we are the, you know, leading companies whose job it is to make a profit, but it's also very important that we don't raise doubts without facts. Because and that we go to towards people's questions with transparency as always with science, with data and answers people answer people's questions. And so as a manufacturer, again, we seek to cooperate and collaborate with governments, with states because this isn't always a national uh question. And um to answer people's uh you know, uh, questions that are reasonable, but I just hope that we can try and reduce some of the Uh, speculation and misinformation which over time, you know, can prove to be dangerous. Do you have any questions in the audience for Emma? 00 my goodness, I'm happy to see you. I'm so happy to see you. So you are well known to be a purpose-driven leader. How have you, have you instilled that into the culture of GSK? Well, I love this question. I think, you know, when people, and Karen, you would, you and I have discussed this before, but I Of the many lessons I continue to learn, one of them. Is that purpose and values. are always the fundamental rock in which every difficult decision can be made. And answering why we do things. is something that in fact even in reminding people why we do things for the difficult days is extremely important. Many of you will have led, you know, through COVID. Many of you are leading through the volatility of policy and geopolitics. Many of you are leading through a world that has been completely transformed and turned upside down with both opportunity and and anxiety for people in terms of what technology is going to. Uh, bring and, and you know, the list of those things can go on, but reminding people when they get up in the morning why we do this, why it's worthwhile, um, is incredibly important and the most federating factor. And so we articulate it in our purpose, which is to get ahead of disease together. Uh, and we articulate it in our value set, which is about being ambitious for patients, accountable for our impact, and doing the right thing because we are a serious industry and people are counting on us to do our work with integrity and care. And I think being Uh, open and transparent about the tough decisions we make, but always reminding people why it's worth it. There is not an individual in the world who in the end. Doesn't care about health. Whether it be for themselves. Or for the people that they love, for their colleagues, uh, for their company, for their community, for their country. So in some ways, you know, I was hearing Beth talking about the privilege of her work and going from her kind of farmer to my kind of farmer, um. I've been waiting to make that joke for such a long time. It's British humor, but you know, I'm a huge fan of, a huge fan of, but, but the point is, this is worthwhile work. This is worthwhile work and You know, sometimes I just think remembering the human in us is the thing that carries us forward. But Karen Lynch, you are a wonderful example of an inspirational leader, uh, who I admire hugely because I know how deep this runs for you too. In the past I mean you've um sort of dismissed this idea of the superhero CEO um but we're seeing a lot of companies now, um. Appoint co-CEOs, they say, you know, it makes more sense. This is such a big job. Um, we need two people to do it. Is it, is what's being asked of CEOs today sort of unsustainable, unrealistic? Um, well, first of all, I think there are few things more obnoxious in life than CEOs complaining about how hard their life is. Fair enough. um. You know, I didn't grow up thinking I would get. Even half a chance at this and um. It's such a privilege. And as I said, you know, at the beginning of your first question, you just hope that in the time that you are given the responsibility to do something like this. You make it better than it was when you started and you hope the person that follows you makes it better again and that you are equipping them to, to accelerate, um. I think what's true, and I'm sure those in the room who have served as CEOs or who aspire to that is. If you have a chance to do it. I'd run at it with full and brave hearts and the biggest dreams you possibly can for impact. But, but I would do it eyes wide open because to your question, I mean, I think you have to be prepared for the things you don't get to do if you want to do this job. And you know, I think I've just about managed to be A mom at the same time as being a CEO some might debate how good a wife I've been, but I've done my best and, uh, and the kids are all fine. No, 30 years, it's good. Uh, but it's another reason why I'm looking forward to at least a mini break before I do something else, um. Uh, but you really have to give everything you've got, and you have to know yourself. You have to be prepared for a resilience and stamina point of view, um, both mental and physical, if you're traveling, you know, around the world. I think I had 38 trips to the US last year and I've been, I will have been in 7 cities in 10 days in. Three continents. Uh, so just now, so, um. You know, it asks that of you. But, but that is the responsibility that that comes with it, and I think, you know, the chance to Leeds. Get one life. So, uh, I would say give it everything you possibly have, and it's not about being a superhero. I don't, I don't know if it's about sharing the job. Probably that can work if you get the right cocktail and combination and with the right brief, but I definitely think. Even if as CEO, you have to be prepared to stand up and absorb all of the pressure. And stand in front of your organization, whether it's hostile bids or activist investors or, you know, all the stuff that the the the the visibility, the public visibility you get from this, you have to absorb all of that. But you have to remember at the same time, it's not about you. Get your ego out of the way. It's about the team. It's about the company. And it's about the people that you serve. So I'd say it's a, you know, it's a job to be grateful for, and if you have the chance, grab a head heart and hands. Yes or no question to wrap up. If you have the chance again. Do you wanna be a CEO again of what? You tell us. You tell us Oh, I don't know. Uh, I, I'm 56. Uh, I am genetically gifted by my parents with a degree of energy. I'm going to just, first of all, I need, I really, my job is to set Luke up brilliantly and to support Luke and the leadership team and 70,000 people in GSK brilliantly, and I'm so determined to To do that and see them accelerate over the decade ahead because, you know, this is an essential industry that needs to keep evolving um and then as I said, I was 17 years at L'Oreal and it will be 16 at GSK, and I'll see what the next 15 will hold and um you know, all input welcome. Well we're looking forward to it. Please give Emma a round of, uh, round of applause. Thank you so much. Thanks.

After starting as a renegade industry, crypto companies spent years—and tens of millions of dollars—fighting for legitimacy in D.C. This year, the effort paid off, with Congress passing a bill to create guardrails around stablecoins. Longtime D.C. veteran Kristin Smith of the Solana Policy Institute breaks down the history of the industry's political efforts and what comes next.

The Politics of Crypto

Fortune_Crypto

DBS, Southeast Asia’s largest and most profitable bank, is betting big on artificial intelligence to define the next era of global banking. From algorithmic credit scoring and AI-enabled fraud detection to hyper-personalized customer engagement, the bank is embedding intelligence across its platforms to drive both efficiency and growth. With regional competition heating up and digital expectations rising, the challenge is no longer whether to adopt AI—but how to do so responsibly, securely, and at scale. CEO Tan Su Shan shares how the bank is navigating that challenge, what being AI-fueled means in practice, and how institutions across Asia can turn automation and analytics into real strategic advantage.

The Intelligence Dividend: How DBS Is Deploying AI To Reshape Regional Finance

Joanne Smith, executive vice president and chief people officer at Delta Air Lines, shares how Delta is integrating AI into its hiring process and why she believes keeping human interaction in the process is essential for finding the right talent.

These Are the Jobs AI Will Destroy, Says HR Exec

Joanne Smith, executive vice president and chief people officer at Delta Air Lines, shares how Delta is integrating AI into its hiring process.

Because you hear a lot of people saying, hey, I was gonna take my Miami job. I know you all have probably heard about that from so many people. So how do you keep company culture strong while also saying it's ok, it's gonna help you. And, and here's how, yeah, I think for them, I mean, there are certain job categories that will probably not be necessary in five years. Um And, you know, I, I think I was, I'll just use my own daughter's um, experience. I told her she need to get a degree in something that was gonna pay for her to live in New York. Right? When my parents said the exact same thing and I went to journalism and I did not listen to that. She was a journalism major life she would love, but she was so mad at me. Um I just, I love creative writing and all that. But, you know, so she went into mis, well, you know, certain mis jobs are just not gonna be necessary and she was like, kind of beating me up the other day. So, um I should have gone into more of that journalism but I think um II, I do think there are some jobs but for the most part that what our story is, you know, and it's easy to have a mission of. No one better connects the world, that's Delta's mission. No one better connects the world and to connect the world you have to be in it. Yeah, so we're not remote, you know, we, we are face to face, we, we believe in the power of face to face interactions. And so it's kind of core to our culture is face to face and human. And therefore, I mean, that's what we just, people are a little nervous about it and some jobs probably will change and go away. But I think for the masses, I mean, 96 8% it's just gonna shift and we're gonna upscale using Gen A I Joanne. Thank you so much for being here. I very much appreciate it. Um So as someone who just took a Delta flight here this morning, I can tell you that I have seen firsthand how Delta is using A I from a customer facing side. Um and I know that you're also transition to using it or have already transitioned to using it from an employee and internal side. Can you talk to me about, you know, the best and worst use cases you've seen at Delta for using it? Well, first of all, thank you very much and it's, it's really great to be in a small group and it's, we were talking about how this is a small community and, and so many of us are connected. And so it's really fun to be in a, in a group of hr professionals. And so, I mean, they're, you know, the, the kind of the sky is endless of possible use cases. And I think the biggest challenge we have are finding the ones that we can implement. Uh, there are some big kind of secret ones that we can't talk about that are, are gonna take some time, we're getting building partners. But then there's a lot of little use cases that are just going to and you make what we do and, and with our partner service now is one of them. It's just kind of just the day to day job easier and get back to the old fashioned good work of hr and I, I, I think that is kind of what my most exciting news cases are is when we can get the tools in our hr business partners hands to do kind of stuff that they have to hunt all over for and make decisions on when there's probably someone that has done it before and has can, can benefit from that decision. And when the model learns and how much faster that can go, makes our, makes our B HRB PS more strategic. So that is one of the exciting use cases now is just how do you get all that information that lays in lies in the system? I mean, we're on a customer facing side. I mean, we've been using A I for a long time but I, one of the challenges I see is there's different, varying degrees of understanding of generative A I and the step change function and what it's capable of doing versus data science and analysts, uh analytics and uh machine learning. So that that is something. So we're using one method of, of really not so much generative A I yet but with our customer facing jobs or on the phone, you know, so all of our policies are procedures and we handle calls for KLM and Air France and Aeromexico and some policies are a little different. We whether we fly that airline, maybe it's as simple as a pet in cabin might be different restrictions on an airplane with this size under the seat versus this size, you know. So our, our agents used to have to kind of go through so many documents to find the right answer. So we've had um roughly 6000 interactions of making those answers better and faster, better service for our customers. Very cool. What do employees do? They come to you and say, hey, Joan, I wish I had this thing that would make my life easier. And can we use A I do this? Is there a top thing that they say to you with that? Well, II I think the the employee needs are always and I we live in the airline business. So um what one of the best benefits and why people are attracted to the airline bus business is travel. Um So we make the world accessible and what they'd like to do is be able to predict because as an airline employee, you go behind the revenue paying customers, but they wanna do is predict. Am I gonna get on the flight with some certainty? And some of the things that happened last minute at an airport, if uh you know, some folks move their flights up early, you know, they go stand by, they stand by for an earlier flight that moves that employee down that pecking order. So if we can be more predictive in our travel benefits for our employees, um that's a huge benefit. But again, I don't know that that is yet generative A I, I mean that is that is using, using machine learning and A I but what employees aren't asking us yet, but they will um is I've got these skills, I need those skills to get this job. And how can learning models be adapted to me and my personal learning style. That's game changing. Speaking of skilling, because I'd love to talk about that. How are you using it currently to upskill A I or upskill your employees and attract new ones to the company? So, you know, for the past two years, we have been using the time and, and we're a business that doesn't really have a lot of attrition. I mean, we're pretty stable work with modest growth every year. The pandemic kind of changed that, you know, like this. But, but typically, you know, we are, you know, modest growth, not, not a lot of turnover. Um So we use the pandemic as a time to look at all of the inventory of the skills for the 450 plus jobs that we have at Delta, I mean some jobs, pilot mechanic, flight attendant, but then there's varying degrees of mechanics and then for our uh strategic jobs, our merit positions. Um you know, there are so many different and revenue management analyst is different than a airport. Customer service analyst is different. So we've been using this time to really inventory all of the skills required for the job. Um then actually have they built a skills based to be for you to input what your skills are. So the skills first approach that we've been on for the last year is really taking off and we're now developing a talent hub. So you can see these are the skills I have. This is the skills I need. It's much more transparent. How do I get from job A to job B the future when we're able to actually use our own data and our own policies, our own culture, values and build that information internally, then the the power of, of learning, you know, how you use generative A I to adapt my style of learning and what skills I need to the content. I mean, we have hundreds of thousands of uh learning and development um on ramps every year. I mean, people are using our, our systems but they're not customizing it and to the way that A I is gonna allow us to customize it. you know, I was at, um, our most powerful women summit in California last week and we had this great conversation about A I and using it to hire a diverse workforce and who's doing it, how they're doing it? Are you looking at that at Delta? And has it helped, has it hurt? How do you, how do you look at bias and, and A I? Yeah, I mean, that is one that I think we're all struggling. So I know that there's some experts here at the table and I'm probably way far down the, the, you know, I'm not that expert at it. You know, we used for, you know, years ago, we were, you know, dabbling a little bit more with A I in the interview process, we interview all of our, um, candidates face to face. Um, but we're dabbling a little bit with A I, but I mean, the regulatory issues are gonna be, you know, something of a challenge but also, you know, our value, we are deeply rooted values company. So we, we never will take the human, you know, out of that human resource hiring and human is gonna be in the loop, but we can't possibly go through 2 million applications for 10,000 jobs um without use of some A I applications behavioral assessments. So we do rely on our partners a lot. As many of us in the room, at least, maybe not many Delta as limited capital and as hr leaders, I'm sure we've heard this story. It's always tough to kind of debate with your customer, our service people who's gonna get the capital. And so we have to be able to depend on our partners. Thank you very much to meet you here to kind of build those solutions within those tools that we will be using. Interesting. Where do you think is the biggest um pitfall that you see of, of using A I and implementing it at Delta? Well, you know, I I for, I can't speak right now at Delta and, and, and I, if my, if my boss is listening right now and he might, I say we need to learn it right? I think he knows it. I think the biggest issue is we got under have a level of understanding and change management that's gonna be required because the pitfall to me is you don't wanna go chase the chi shiny objects and get on this train, this train of A IJ of a I, but then, you know, you really have to understand what it can do for you and where, what you wanna bypass on, you know, don't be, don't feel like you have to rush to it. And then, but I think the understanding is how do you make people's lives better? How do you make our employee experience better? How do you make the customer experience better? We're not looking at it as a productivity initiative. People say, oh, you know, this means a I means you're cutting heads. No, we're looking at ways to work differently and make the experience better. I think that's what I was exactly going to ask about. Next is the fear because you hear a lot of people saying, hey, I was gonna take my Miami job. I know you all have probably heard about that from so many people. So how do you keep company culture strong while also saying it's OK, it's going to help you and, and here's how, yeah, I think for them, I mean, there are certain job categories that will probably not be necessary in five years. Um And you know, I, I think I was, I'll just use my own daughter's um experience. I told her she needed to get a degree in something that was gonna pay for her to live in New York, right? My parents said the exact same thing and I went to journalism and I did not listen to that. She was a journalism she would love but she was so mad at me. Um, I just, I love creative writing and all that. But, you know, so she went into mis, well, you know, certain mis jobs are just not gonna be necessary and she was, like, kind of beating me up the other day. So, um, I should have gone into more of that journalism. But I think, um, II, I do think there are some jobs but for the most part that what our story is, you know, and it's easy to have a mission of. No one better connects the world. That's Delta's mission. No one better connects the world and to connect the world you have to be in it. Yeah. So we're not remote, you know, we, we are face to face. We, we believe in the power of face to face interactions. And so it's kind of core to our culture is face to face and human. And therefore, I mean, that's what we just, people are a little nervous about it and some jobs probably will change and go away. But I think for the masses, I mean, 96 8% it's just gonna shift and we're gonna upscale using gen A I, what advice would you give to the people here in this room? I think specifically around people looking to build or buy with A I models. I'm sure a lot of people here are thinking about that. How, how are you looking at it. So I think for right now it hr um we are buying license agreements. Um but the real power of being able to use it with your own, like again, the large language learning will have to come when you're building it. And so maybe not right now, but we're thinking of a future for building, but we're not gonna get that overnight. Um And so you, you'll buy the things that will be just really transactional opportunities to make things work go faster and slightly better. But if you really wanna make a, I use learning and development a lot, if you really wanna start, you know, customizing to your data, to your policies, to your culture, we're gonna have to build some of that internally because we're firewall on, you know, off everything else, right? So, but, but I think it's, it's gonna happen and it's just for hr at least we're not gonna get the capital prioritization right yet. So we're gonna defend a lot of the, of the build. I mean, excuse me, of the buy all. And last question for you, Joanne, what keeps you up at night? Relating to A I and hr what do you, what do you think about before you go to bed? You know, I I'm not, you know, I think what's the threat in society is like, you know, I, I think that there are some real um like pitfalls there that we've gotta be as you know, I'm, I'm reading about countries that are doing education um for students to understand what's real and what's not. So, I, you know, I think I'm more worried kind of societally, you know, like what are, what are we telling our teaching, our, our students and how do you start to prepare for it? And, and I would say I'm excited about the opportunity. I think that embracing it, it's very darwinism, right? You gotta adapt die, right? So this is gonna happen, you know, this, this is gonna be more disruptive than the internet. Um It's not gonna happen overnight, but we're all gonna have to adapt. Perfect. Well, thank you so much, Joan. I appreciate it. And now we're gonna join for a discussion and open up to everything. So thank you very much.

A.O. Smith

A.O. Smith in Coins2Day Rankings

A.O. Smith stock chart

Videos