Governance of AI: A Critical Imperative for Today’s Boards
Introduction When the gen AI tool ChatGPT exploded onto the global market in November 2022, it democratized access to the newest AI capabilities within a matter of days. Now, nearly two years later, the growth in AI investment continues to rise: Gartner forecasts that worldwide IT spending will total US$5.26 trillion in 2024, an increase […]
Lara Abrash is the Chair, Dr. Arno Probst is the Global Boardroom Program Leader, and Karen Edelman is Senior Editor at Deloitte LLP. This post is based on their Deloitte memorandum.
Introduction
When the gen AI tool ChatGPT exploded onto the global market in November 2022, it democratized access to the newest AI capabilities within a matter of days. [1] Now, nearly two years later, the growth in AI investment continues to rise: Gartner forecasts that worldwide IT spending will total US$5.26 trillion in 2024, an increase of 7.5% from 2023, and points to generative AI-related investments as the main reason behind this growth. [2]
As organizations prepare to move past the piloting stage to integrate AI more broadly into strategy and operations, how active are boards in overseeing their organizations’ approach to AI? Are they providing the right level of stewardship to help the organizations’ management teams balance the wide array of opportunities and risks that AI can introduce?
In June 2024, the Deloitte Global Boardroom Program surveyed nearly 500 board members and C-suite executives across 57 countries to understand how involved boards have been in AI governance. The survey explored sentiments about the current pace of adoption and the board’s role in strategic oversight of this emerging technology (see methodology). We also spoke with board directors and Deloitte subject matter specialists to understand how AI stewardship is evolving in boardrooms around the world. Of note, while the survey asked respondents about both generative AI and artificial intelligence more broadly, our interviews revealed that many business leaders are primarily focused on gen AI adoption right now.
