As we explored in our article, Rise of the AI CEO, it’s evident that AI (artificial intelligence) will continue to evolve and revolutionise various industries. Since the article’s publication, OpenAI has launched its revolutionary GPT4, DeepMind has been solving decades old medical problems that stumped scientists, and people across the internet fell for AI-generated deepfakes of the Pope wearing a Balenciaga coat and fake images of former president Donald Trump when he was arrested.
Amid these rapid advances and troubling warning signs, corporate board members may start to consider incorporating AI tools into their boardrooms. What would be the potential benefits of such a consideration? Corporate directors’ time and attention are limited. Having a resource that is dispassionate, data-driven, objective, and always available could be a support.
However, companies must consider several factors before adopting AI. Company boards should ask themselves three key questions before going down that path.
What role can AI play?
Before inviting AI into the boardroom, companies need to have a clear vision of what role AI should play. Much like any new company-wide technological adoption, AI can support specifically defined tasks or responsibilities. Hypothetically, AI could analyse large volumes of data and provide insights to board members, it could help to distil complex and changing regulations around governance, and it could simulate a wide range of impacts that board decisions could have on the company.
One such example is an interesting AI platform called FiscalNote. This uses AI to read through regulatory comment letters to predict the likelihood of passage of proposed legislation based on historical data, bill sponsors, etc.
Given the power of these insights and predictions, it will be tempting for boards to delegate decision-making. It’s worth remembering that AIs only have the morality and empathy that they’ve been programmed with. Board members must determine where in the decision-making process AI will live: will it be a data source, will it be an analytics engine, will it provide input and predictions, and will it have a voice in decisions?
When can we start?
Considering the recent call from tech and political leaders to pause AI experiments for six months based on a worry of “profound risks to society”, it is important to recognise that now may not be the right time for bringing AI tools into the boardroom. This is not surprising, considering the examples of misinformation spread thanks to AI image generation that went viral recently.
Another crucial factor to consider before incorporating AI into your boardroom is how stakeholders, both internal and external, will react to the use of AI in decision-making processes.
Communication is key and boards should be transparent about how they use AI and to demonstrate the benefits of AI tools into the boardroom and but not as a replacement for human oversight.
Internal stakeholders, such as employees, may have concerns about how AI will impact jobs or the direction of the company. To address these concerns, companies should provide education to employees about the benefits and limitations of AI tools, embracing AI as another tool in the company’s arsenal and normalising the use of this new technology.
External stakeholders, including customers, investors, and regulators, may have concerns about the ethics of using AI in decision-making. Companies should be transparent about their use of AI and determine the degree of disclosure they believe is right.
The question of trust
Finally, companies need to consider how much trust they should place in an AI tool. While AI can provide valuable insights and predictions, it is still limited by programming and potential coder biases. While people may self-report their scepticism toward new technology, behavioural studies often show that humans place too much trust in technologies such as AI and vehicle self-driving features they don’t fully understand.
To play an effective role in governance, corporate boards will need to quickly ramp up their AI IQ, as this technology will quickly permeate every layer of the companies they oversee. It will have a role all the way from the boardroom to the boiler room. Directors must play a role in that implementation to ensure AI is being used in the right way, with the right guard rails, and with the right degree of transparency.
Sparky Zivin is senior managing director and global head of research at consultancy Teneo in Washington DC, and Seán Earley is managing director, international creative campaigning, at Teneo, Dublin.