Report Makes Business Case for Responsible AI — Campus Technology

Report Makes Business Case for Responsible AI

A new report commissioned by Microsoft and published last month by research firm IDC notes that 91% of organizations use AI tech and expect more than a 24% improvement in customer experience, business resilience, sustainability, and operational efficiency due to AI in 2024.

“In addition, organizations that use responsible AI solutions reported benefits such as improved data privacy, enhanced customer experience, confident business decisions, and strengthened brand reputation and trust,” said Microsoft exec Sarah Bird in a blog post. “These solutions are built with tools and methodologies to identify, assess, and mitigate potential risks throughout their development and deployment.”

The report, titled “From Risk to Reward: The Business Case for Responsible AI,” outlines the following foundational elements of a responsible organization:

• Core values and governance: It defines and articulates responsible AI (RAI) mission and principles, supported by the C-suite, while establishing a clear governance structure across the organization that builds confidence and trust in AI technologies.
• Risk management and compliance: It strengthens compliance with stated principles and current laws and regulations while monitoring future ones and develops policies to mitigate risk and operationalize those policies through a risk management framework with regular reporting and monitoring.
• Technologies: It uses tools and techniques to support principles such as fairness, explainability, robustness, accountability, and privacy and builds these into AI systems and platforms.
• Workforce: It empowers leadership to elevate RAI as a critical business imperative and provides all employees with training to give them a clear understanding of responsible AI principles and how to translate these into actions. Training the broader workforce is paramount for ensuring RAI adoption.

A few Microsoft-provided highlights of the report, meanwhile, include:

• More than 30% of respondents noted that the lack of governance and risk management solutions is the top barrier to adopting and scaling AI.

  
  

• More than 75% of respondents who use responsible AI solutions reported improvements in data privacy, customer experience, confident business decisions, brand reputation, and trust.

  
  

• Organizations are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning governance tools and professional services for responsible AI, with 35% of AI organization spend in 2024 allocated to AI and machine learning governance tools and 32% to professional services.