When it launched GPT-4, in March 2023, OpenAI touted its superiority to its already impressive predecessor, saying the new version was better in terms of accuracy, reasoning ability, and test scores-all of which are AI-performance metrics that have been used for some time. However, most striking was OpenAI's characterization of GPT-4 as "more aligned"-perhaps the first time that an AI product or service has been marketed in terms of its alignment with human values. In this article a team of five experts offer a framework for thinking through the development challenges of creating AI-enabled products and services that are safe to use and robustly aligned with generally accepted and company-specific values. The challenges fall into five categories, corresponding to the key stages in a typical innovation process from design to development, deployment, and usage monitoring. For each set of challenges, the authors present an overview of the frameworks, practices, and tools that executives can leverage to face those challenges.

Luthra Engineering Industries (LEI), a small-scale, family-run manufacturing business, based in a small Indian city, is going through a crisis. Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, LEI had been shut for two months but has received the government's permission to re-open, albeit, if it complies with certain conditions. LEI can invite only 30 per cent of its employees back to the office amidst proper safety, leading to challenges of maintaining equity due to salary dilemmas and implementing various safety protocols. However, LEI's management are not only dealing with a pandemic looming large along but also macroeconomic uncertainty, business continuity, financial crunch, and employee motivation, equity, and safety. LEI's leaders need to make sense of this multi-pronged crisis.

Luthra Engineering Industries (LEI), a small-scale, family-run manufacturing business, based in a small Indian city, is going through a crisis. Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, LEI had been shut for two months but has received the government’s permission to re-open, albeit, if it complies with certain conditions. LEI can invite only 30 per cent of its employees back to the office amidst proper safety, leading to challenges of maintaining equity due to salary dilemmas and implementing various safety protocols. However, LEI’s management are not only dealing with a pandemic looming large along but also macroeconomic uncertainty, business continuity, financial crunch, and employee motivation, equity, and safety. LEI’s leaders need to make sense of this multi-pronged crisis.

In early 2022, Rajendra Jaiswal was in a quandary about the future of the collective enterprise Diwak Mata Farmer Producer Company Limited (Diwak Mata), which his organization, Prakriti Foundation for Natural Resources Regeneration (Prakriti), had helped incubate and grow. Since Diwak Mata's registration in 2018, Prakriti had helped it develop connections with various value chain participants and overcome the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a supportive Board of Directors (BoD) and an able chief executive officer (CEO) in Rakesh Sen, Diwak Mata was recognized as one of the better-performing producer companies in the region and had growing revenues with fluctuating profits. Looking at the figures of the audited balance sheet, Jaiswal wondered whether Prakriti should withdraw its support to the producer company. Were Diwak Mata's BoD of farmers and the CEO strong enough to chart the organization's own path? Could they create sufficient ownership from the stakeholders for sustained growth in Prakriti's absence? Should Prakriti remain loyal to Diwak Mata or exit and continue its core activities with other communities?

In 2020, the tuition and coaching industry in India was severely hit due the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent nationwide lockdowns. With physical classes suspended, many private tutors and coaching institutes closed their businesses. Teachers and educators found limited options for conducting classes online, and it was challenging to manage and monitor teaching-related activities. Founded in May 2020, Teachmint, the Bengaluru-based education technology (edtech) start-up, provided a one-stop edtech infrastructure solution for teachers, educators, and institutes. With a focused business-to-business model, Teachmint grew leaps and bounds in its first year of operations. The company had begun international expansions by partnering with edtech companies in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. However, Teachmint's chief executive officer was debating whether it was the right time to go global or whether his company should focus on the Indian edtech market, which was competitive and featured several large players.

VDart Inc (VDart) was founded by Sidd Ahmed in December 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, as a digital talent management and services firm, which grew at a steady rate to reach US$160 million in annual revenue and more than 2,550 employees in 2019. The same year, the company was classified as the 138th largest and fifty-sixth fastest-growing staffing firm in the United States. VDart’s global servicing hub was based in Tiruchirappalli, India, with about 380 employees who served clients from seven geographic locations. VDart differentiated itself from its competitors through its core values of appreciation, recognition, and encouragement (ARE) and through unique cultural practices including shout-outs during Monday conference calls, Friday Lunch & Learn sessions, and annual reward and recognition (R&R) events. Growing rapidly, VDart had set itself an ambitious goal of becoming a $500 million revenue firm by December 2022. However, the rapid growth was putting a strain on the existing culture, making it challenging to sustain and nurture it. Ahmed and the top management were finding it increasingly difficult to instill the VDart culture in new employees, realizing that the values which had propelled VDart’s success thus far would not take it to the next level. The case describes the company’s twelve-year growth journey, its unique cultural practices, and the growing pains, inviting students to think about options to manage culture during rapid growth.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) handles all online and mobile ticketing for the Indian Railways, the largest passenger carrier in the world, with an annual footfall of more than 8 billion. The IRCTC wished to monetise its data assets and floated a tender in July 2022 to engage a consultant for its data monetisation initiative. The tender faced severe backlash on social media from the lay public as well as privacy rights advocates, and invited the scrutiny of a Parliamentary Committee of the Government of India. Faced with this opposition, the IRCTC recalled the tender. This case allows students to analyse if there is value to IRCTC's data monetisation project and, if so, for which stakeholders. Should the tender be redesigned or should the IRCTC or Indian Railways do this exercise internally? Can data monetisation coexist with data privacy of stakeholders or should this project be abandoned? Would a tender for hiring a consultant for data analytics have seen as much resistance? The case highlights the importance of a tender document to be seen as a medium of communication for the lay public and not just as a commercial document for vendors.

Deepinder Goyal and Pankaj Chaddah co-founded Zomato as a food discovery platform that listed menus from restaurants in the Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi-NCR). Zomato quickly gained popularity and expanded its services to multiple cities in India and abroad. In 2015, Zomato shifted its focus from providing only restaurant discovery services to exploring new business initiatives. One such initiative was Zomaland, which was conceptualised as a food carnival that combined three elements-fun activities, lip-smacking food and entertainment. Zomato organised two seasons of Zomaland in various cities and formats in 2019 and 2020. However, because of the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company was forced to suspend Zomaland operations. As the economy gradually returned to normal in 2022, Zomato had to reappraise the future of Zomaland and its synergy with other services offered by Zomato.

In 2020, the tuition and coaching industry in India was severely hit due the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent nationwide lockdowns. With physical classes suspended, many private tutors and coaching institutes closed their businesses. Teachers and educators found limited options for conducting classes online, and it was challenging to manage and monitor teaching-related activities. Founded in May 2020, Teachmint, the Bengaluru-based education technology (edtech) start-up, provided a one-stop edtech infrastructure solution for teachers, educators, and institutes. With a focused business-to-business model, Teachmint grew leaps and bounds in its first year of operations. The company had begun international expansions by partnering with edtech companies in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. However, Teachmint’s chief executive officer was debating whether it was the right time to go global or whether his company should focus on the Indian edtech market, which was competitive and featured several large players.

In early 2022, Rajendra Jaiswal was in a quandary about the future of the collective enterprise Diwak Mata Farmer Producer Company Limited (Diwak Mata), which his organization, Prakriti Foundation for Natural Resources Regeneration (Prakriti), had helped incubate and grow. Since Diwak Mata’s registration in 2018, Prakriti had helped it develop connections with various value chain participants and overcome the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a supportive Board of Directors (BoD) and an able chief executive officer (CEO) in Rakesh Sen, Diwak Mata was recognized as one of the better-performing producer companies in the region and had growing revenues with fluctuating profits. Looking at the figures of the audited balance sheet, Jaiswal wondered whether Prakriti should withdraw its support to the producer company. Were Diwak Mata’s BoD of farmers and the CEO strong enough to chart the organization’s own path? Could they create sufficient ownership from the stakeholders for sustained growth in Prakriti’s absence? Should Prakriti remain loyal to Diwak Mata or exit and continue its core activities with other communities?

VDart Inc (VDart) was founded by Sidd Ahmed in December 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, as a digital talent management and services firm, which grew at a steady rate to reach US$160 million in annual revenue and more than 2,550 employees in 2019. The same year, the company was classified as the 138th largest and fifty-sixth fastest-growing staffing firm in the United States. VDart's global servicing hub was based in Tiruchirappalli, India, with about 380 employees who served clients from seven geographic locations. VDart differentiated itself from its competitors through its core values of appreciation, recognition, and encouragement (ARE) and through unique cultural practices including shout-outs during Monday conference calls, Friday Lunch & Learn sessions, and annual reward and recognition (R&R) events. Growing rapidly, VDart had set itself an ambitious goal of becoming a $500 million revenue firm by December 2022. However, the rapid growth was putting a strain on the existing culture, making it challenging to sustain and nurture it. Ahmed and the top management were finding it increasingly difficult to instill the VDart culture in new employees, realizing that the values which had propelled VDart's success thus far would not take it to the next level. The case describes the company's twelve-year growth journey, its unique cultural practices, and the growing pains, inviting students to think about options to manage culture during rapid growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic required most organizations to enable a work-from-home/work-from-anywhere approach. The enforced necessity became a habit for many employees, who preferred the new flexibility. However, with organizations wanting to bring employees back to the office, there was resistance due to an unexpected reason. The work-from-home environment had allowed moonlighting for a few employees, who undertook gigs and even permanent assignments with other employers. This phenomenon is widespread among IT/ITeS and other consulting/knowledge industries. The motivations for these assignments were additional income and increased learning and exposure. While dual employment was not legally allowed in India, employment contracts enforcing this rule and penalizing employees led to increased talent loss. Employees were happy to leave the organization for less formal or rigid work environments, resulting in higher attrition. Organizations' dilemma was to reject moonlighting through strict contracts, employee monitoring, and informal checks or formalize it through making moonighting "ethical". Still, measures rejecting moonlighting could dilute the culture of trust and increase attrition, not just of the moonlighting employees. However, organizations could embrace this phenomenon and formalize moonlighting through appropriate policies and guidelines, which led to increased risk to employee commitment, ensuring productivity, information and security risk, and the organizations' capability in predictable client servicing.

A former investment banking professional had her eureka moment when she noticed instances of assaults on single women travelling alone in taxi cabs at odd times of the day. The prevalence of these instances led her to begin a safe cab service run by women for women—Taxshe Services Pvt. Ltd. (Taxshe), located in Bengaluru, India. In March 2020, the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic began in India, and a lockdown was announced as a preventive measure. Taxshe, whose customers mainly comprised working women and school-going children, faced a significant challenge, as the sudden changes and stringent restrictions brought on by the lockdown precipitated a substantial drop in the need for cab services. Taxshe’s founder contemplated the company’s dilemma and consulted people from across her wide network of personal and professional acquaintances. How could she keep Taxshe up and running in spite of the restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic? What value-added specialty services could Taxshe offer as a cab service during the pandemic that would benefit society at large?

A former investment banking professional had her eureka moment when she noticed instances of assaults on single women travelling alone in taxi cabs at odd times of the day. The prevalence of these instances led her to begin a safe cab service run by women for women-Taxshe Services Pvt. Ltd. (Taxshe), located in Bengaluru, India. In March 2020, the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic began in India, and a lockdown was announced as a preventive measure. Taxshe, whose customers mainly comprised working women and school-going children, faced a significant challenge, as the sudden changes and stringent restrictions brought on by the lockdown precipitated a substantial drop in the need for cab services. Taxshe's founder contemplated the company's dilemma and consulted people from across her wide network of personal and professional acquaintances. How could she keep Taxshe up and running in spite of the restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic? What value-added specialty services could Taxshe offer as a cab service during the pandemic that would benefit society at large?

In March 2021, the weather company Tomorrow.io announced a new project to develop satellites equipped with radar for weather monitoring and launch them into Earth's orbit. Company leadership considers execution strategies.

The case tracks Dineout's evolution into a full-scale tech solution provider for restaurants. In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic struck the world. Several countries, including India, implemented complete lockdowns to control the spread of the virus. Stringent measures to ensure social distancing, night curfews and restrictions on social gatherings continued, which were a severe blow to the restaurant industry. The restaurants' revenue streams dried up as the diners avoided dining out and preferred food deliveries, which was against Dineout's core business model. The case ends with the questions on how Dineout should wade through the pandemic when its entire business model was being challenged.

Neons Fashion LLP was the entrepreneurial venture of Arthi Ramalingam after she completed her MBA. Arthi had been interested in jewellery since childhood and decided to focus on the design, manufacturing and retailing of fashion and costume jewellery items under the brand name of Eternz through different sales channels like exhibitions, retail stores, own website and as an independent seller on e-commerce marketplaces. She initially started selling on Amazon marketplace through a third party, Cloudtail India Pvt. Ltd and later sold through other e-commerce marketplace operators like Flipkart, Jabong and FirstCry. As her business grew, Arthi planned to add the kids' shoes category and decided to participate in the Bangalore Fashion Week to build the Eternz brand. However, in November 2016, Cloudtail terminated her contract, which played havoc with the sales and profitability of her start-up. Neons Fashion LLP (A) provides details of how independent sellers are at the mercy of marketplace operators and ends with the need to review the choices of sales channels for different categories like fashion garments and fashion accessories and for the upcoming launch of kids' shoes.

Neons Fashion LLP was the entrepreneurial venture of Arthi Ramalingam after she completed her MBA. Arthi had been interested in jewellery since childhood and decided to focus on the design, manufacturing and retailing of fashion and costume jewellery items under the brand name of Eternz through different sales channels like exhibitions, retail stores, own website and as an independent seller on e-commerce marketplaces. She initially started selling on Amazon marketplace through a third party, Cloudtail India Pvt. Ltd and later sold through other e-commerce marketplace operators like Flipkart, Jabong and FirstCry. As her business grew, Arthi planned to add the kids' shoes category and decided to participate in the Bangalore Fashion Week to build the Eternz brand. However, in November 2016, Cloudtail terminated her contract, which played havoc with the sales and profitability of her start-up. Neons Fashion LLP (B) describes the events after the Bangalore Fashion Week that ultimately led to the closure of business.

Set in January 2021, the CEO of SafeGraph, a four-year-old startup that sold Data as a Service, looked to the future. His aim was to become the most trusted source for data about a physical place. The company provided points of interest (POI) and foot traffic data on nearly 7 million businesses in the U.S. and Canada from a variety of providers, then labelled attributes of the data such as the brand affiliation and how long consumers remained at the site. The company sold this data to nearly one hundred customers in advertising tech, retail, and financial services. Clients such as Verizon, Sysco, and Goldman Sachs used it to better understand rapidly changing patterns of consumer behavior. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the company offered free access to its data through the COVID-19 Data Consortium to government agencies to help them understand pandemic behavior and make policy decisions. Nearly a year into the health crisis and with a vaccine rolling out, SafeGraph needed to decide how to evolve the COVID-19 Data Consortium. Perhaps the data offered for free should soon be converted to a paid model, albeit on a subsidized basis? More broadly, how should the team prioritize the government sector into its enterprise customer segment mix and how would this impact the business model and pricing?

On August 9, 2020, Sean Jean De Ville, who had recently joined French fashion and cosmetics giant Satix as digital marketing head of the shampoo products division, was preparing for his first meeting with the CEO. He had been tasked to explore the viability of employing influencer marketing on Instagram. This would be a new promotional vehicle for the company, which had traditionally used billboards, print, and limited digital advertisements. He was also told that a budget of USD 500,000 would be allocated for influencer marketing and that the boss was anxious to get his insights and recommendations.