What Approach Should Boards Be Taking Towards AI?

Episode Summary

Artificial intelligence (AI) is regarded as a distant and futuristic trend by many of today’s companies. As a result, little time is being spent by board and management teams to assess the risks and opportunities of AI or consider the impending financial impact.

AI is not science fiction. Traditional companies—already severely disrupted by cutting-edge technology—underestimate the need to prioritize AI in their strategic and operational road maps. Many of their boards remain blissfully unaware of the coming tempest.
— Recent article via Anastassia Lauterbach & Andrea Bonime-Blanc

While high-tech front-runners like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple are already employing AI in various ways, the rest of the world’s top companies lag significantly behind. The issue, however, is hardly a conscious negligence, but rather that most of today’s boards and management teams are simply unaware of AI’s impending impact. For that matter, most of today’s boards and management aren’t quite sure what AI even entails.

In this episode of Inside America’s Boardrooms, Dr. Anastassia Lauterbach, board member with Dun & Bradstreet and an expert in AI and cybersecurity, explains how boards can begin to understand the risks and opportunities of AI. She also advises boards on how they can begin to approach conversations around the budding technology. “AI is about data, and every company has to have a data value strategy,” says Lauterbach.

Since Dr. Lauterbach is also a member of the Next Gen Board Leaders Advisory Council, host TK Kerstetter starts off by asking her two additional questions:

  • Is Europe seeing a similar trend in the demand for younger board members?
  • As a next-gen director, what is your process for vetting a board opportunity?