Artificial Intelligence And The Boardroom: Immediate Actions Items

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been described as a Promethean Moment. What is meant by this is that it is one of the times in humankind’s history when everything changes due to a new tool being discovered. It may not be an exaggeration to compare the potential impact of AI to other monumental discoveries that changed how we live, like fire or perhaps the wheel.

It is still relatively early days, and for many, AI is simply customer service Chatbots, and self-driving car features. Or ChatGPT and the endlessly entertaining opportunity to ask all types of random questions, much as we did when Alexa showed up some years ago.

But for business leaders, AI is an unstoppable game-changer. It is the ability to improve productivity and performance, discover new products and services, and improve business results in many unanticipated ways. “McKinsey recently reported that “Generative AI’s impact on productivity could add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy.” McKinsey’s 2023 “research estimates that generative AI could add the equivalent of $2.6 trillion to $4.4 trillion annually across the 63 use cases we analyzed—by comparison, the United Kingdom’s entire GDP in 2021 was $3.1 trillion.”¹ Truly staggering!

The potential of AI and its impact is increasing daily and exponentially. Companies of all shapes, sizes, and stages have an opportunity to take advantage of the revolution or risk getting left behind. The Board of Directors, as the ultimate governing body of the organization, must be focused on this now. Here are four ways to begin:

Understanding AI

As the old Chinese proverb states, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” And, of course, to leverage the momentousness of AI, we must first understand it. This does not necessarily mean full-blown technical expertise in the boardroom – although this can help in certain circumstances. Instead, it means that everyone on your board should have a firm grasp of what AI is, the different types of AI, and a sense of what AI is changing in your particular industry or amongst your clients and suppliers. Additionally, this should not be left to chance, individual dabbling, or casual reading on the topic. The board should put AI knowledge and education on its agenda.[…]

Understanding AI

Share this:

Related