Businesses are playing catch-up with AI. The rapid pace of AI in general, and generative AI (GenAI) in particular, has put an extraordinarily powerful new tool in our hands while we’re still learning how and where to use it. We’ve been impressed by the technology’s capabilities, but now we must get serious about AI’s real-life business impact. The question is: Do we know how?
Skills, governance, and culture are essential to making GenAI a success. A recent IBM study found that while CEOs globally realize the need for GenAI governance, only 39% said they have good GenAI governance in place. Yet they’re driven to take risks and make significant GenAI investments, even without understanding their full value. This is because the danger of falling behind competitors and missing out on the potential gains it could bring would be worse.
All the while, hackers continue to target employees with AI-generated smarter phishing emails, texts, and even deep fakes. In one of the largest corporate frauds known to date, a finance worker transferred more than $25 million to scammers using deepfake technology to pose as a company’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) on a video conference call.
AI governance presents a unique opportunity. At Zebra, I lead a cross-functional team in our global efforts around GenAI governance and implementation for our nearly 10,000 employees. We’re cultivating an employee culture learning how to leverage GenAI safely and gain its efficiency benefits.
Creating guardrails and governance around using GenAI more safely, securely, and effectively while cultivating a culture around AI is essential to GenAI’s success in business. Here are three steps you can take to develop governance and culture in your organisation that pave the way for success with AI.
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1. Establish an AI Governance Structure
This first critical step is how we began our AI journey. It’s tempting to jump right in with new technology like GenAI, but it’s wise to take a step back and structure how to leverage it across your organisation.
Effective AI integration begins with a solid governance structure. To establish AI governance, you need to define a set of core principles reflecting your organization’s values and covering aspects like data privacy, security, and ethical AI use.
A governance or executive steering committee defines guidelines on how to leverage GenAI safely and securely. This group should be cross-functional and include top-level executives from business units across your organisation, including representatives from legal and security. Together, they determine the best tools, platforms, and standards for your organization, establishing security, privacy, and legal foundations to guide your GenAI journey.
Without a governing body in place, your business cannot address any potential privacy, confidentiality, or data leakage issues. For example, imagine employees using GenAI ‘x’, inputting valuable or confidential company information as part of their work. Unless this risk was identified, reviewed, and mitigated, that company information could be used to further train the GenAI ‘x’ algorithm and potentially leak private company information publicly.
Legal risks are another growing business concern. Lawsuits are growing against AI companies whose models may include confidential, copyrighted, or proprietary information – and companies that leverage infringing services may also be liable or sued. A governance model works to ensure legal protections are in place. For example, ensuring your agreement with an AI service provider includes a strong indemnity in your favor will help mitigate your risk exposure if you are sued based on your use of a service provider’s AI solution.
Before embarking on an AI journey for your organisation, it’s critical to create a governance team or steering committee to oversee the process. The risks – and rewards – are too great to leave using GenAI to chance. Remember, governance is not about crushing innovation. It’s about creating an environment where employees can leverage GenAI for greater efficiency and innovation – safely. The focus should be on aligning with your organisation’s values and creating a safe environment for your AI journey.
2. Operationalize AI Excellence
Once the ground rules are established, the next step is to put the foundational governance policies, GenAI tools, platforms, and standards into practice. A working committee or center of excellence can bring GenAI to life and continually improve its use throughout your organisation.
The working committee develops a common architecture, framework, and use cases that the whole company can leverage within the guides established by the governing committee. Ideally, your AI platform should align with the other tech platforms standardised across your organisation. By taking this approach, we were able to develop proprietary GenAI tools so that everyone across the organisation can use AI securely, keeping all information within our walls; our organisation’s information isn’t used by external entities to train AI models.
This approach democratises the use of GenAI. The nature of the technology is such that whether you are a business user or an IT team member, you can be very proficient in AI based on the nature of the tools made available throughout an organisation.
Turning AI principles into actionable policies that organisations can follow effectively and responsibly is a significant challenge. Governance develops the guiding roadmap, and the working committee delivers AI platforms, tools, and use cases. But when it comes to helping ensure employees embrace the GenAI tools, that’s where culture comes in.
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3. Build an AI culture from the Bottom Up and the Top Down
It’s the human touch that brings AI culture to life. At Zebra, we have a full-circle AI culture – it works from the bottom up and the top down, where people from every level of the organisation share their passion and knowledge about AI.
This multi-pronged approach includes a train-the-trainer, executive leadership training, event programs, and more. In the train-the-trainer program, for example, about 90 employees volunteered for intensive GenAI training, and we equip them to train other teams across the organisation.
They also train leaders on using AI specifically for their areas, such as finance, marketing, and sales. The leaders then share what they’ve learned with their teams. Even our senior leaders are participating and leading by example, learning about the GenAI tools and leveraging them, and encouraging their teams to do the same. Additionally, every employee will receive GenAI training. This will help employees upskill, build a baseline of understanding, reduce the fear of AI, and adopt internal AI tools more broadly.
It’s important to foster a culture that supports learning and innovation when it comes to GenAI. Empower those using GenAI to share their experiences related to working and learning with new technology and provide learning and training opportunities to your AI evangelists. AI culture is being built this way as more and more employees leverage GenAI and know how to get the most out of it.
GenAI for the Generations
GenAI in business isn’t just for data scientists. Its capabilities can be leveraged across your organisation by every employee. As AI technologies become more prevalent, it’s crucial that employees are equipped to handle the opportunities and threats that come with it. A governing structure and working committee can provide the GenAI roadmap that brings people together as they delve into this tech journey.
