Shift Your Focus to Strategic AI Risks

Artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly emerged as a once-in-a-generation transformative technology for all businesses, but it is presenting boards with two new frontiers of risk—operational and strategic—to manage. As professors, authors, and advisors, our observations of board meetings at some of the world’s leading companies show a pattern of boards significantly over-indexing their focus on the well-publicized operational risks: data security and privacy, knowledge gaps in AI models, data biases or unfairness, the legality of content use, audit trail requirements, and regulatory compliance...

David C. Edelman  is an executive advisor to boards and management teams on AI-driven transformation and is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School.

Vivek Sharma helps boards and CEOs grow their businesses through AI, data, and digital transformation, and serves on the boards of JetBlue Airways Corp. and Kaiser Permanente.