How General Mills Turned a Chatbot Into a Performance Review Engine for 20,000 Employees

General Mills didn't buy a specialized AI-for-HR platform — they grew one from a writing assistant. MillsChat launched in 2023 as an internal chatbot for 900 employees, helping them draft documents and summarize meetings. Two years later, it's processing performance reviews for 20,000 people across four countries. That kind of evolution doesn't happen by accident. The secret wasn't the technology — it was governance. From day one, General Mills put HR, legal, finance, and supply chain at the table together. Chief Digital and Technology Officer Jaime Montemayor summed it up: "It takes a village to be successful with AI in any corporation." That village structure meant HR use cases were designed in, not added on later. And it meant employees already trusted MillsChat before it ever touched their most consequential career moments. In this episode, we walk through all four phases of General Mills' AI maturity arc: from writing assistant to self-service knowledge hub to performance review engine — and now, toward agentic AI that proactively executes multi-step HR workflows. It's a playbook any people team can learn from, whether you're just getting started with AI or looking to level up. If your organization is still debating which AI tool to invest in, this story might reframe the question entirely. The winning move isn't always buying the most sophisticated HR-specific solution. Sometimes it's starting with something useful, earning employee trust, and letting it grow into your most critical processes.