AI governance empowers you to fully leverage the capabilities of this innovative technology confidently, without the associated risks. Learn how the first step to AI governance is software discovery driven by SAP LeanIX.
Artificial intelligence (AI) governance empowers you to freely leverage the power of generative AI without fear of the potential consequences. Far from holding you back from taking advantage of AI, governance spares you the hesitation and confusion regarding the best way to leverage the technology.
With an AI governance policy in place, your employees will know how they shouldn’t be using AI, so they can freely use it in ways they should. Before you can establish your usage policy, however, you need to know what software you have, both AI and otherwise.
By discovering your IT landscape, it’s easy to see where AI can fit and where the risk profile is too high. SAP LeanIX’ automated software discovery capabilities can instantly surface what software you have and where AI fits into it.
To find out more about how SAP LeanIX can empower you to safely leverage the power of AI, download our complete solution guide:
SOLUTION GUIDE: Apply AI Governance Best Practices Now With The Power Of EA
What Is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability for advanced computers to learn from previous experience in order to make decisions independent of human influence. This allows your computers to carry out simple tasks for you, while you concentrate on work that can only be completed by a human.
For example, an AI tool can automatically approve a valid invoice from a supplier for payment without the supervision of a human user. On the other hand, an AI could write up minutes from a meeting for you.
The broad term, “AI”, covers a variety of technology, including:
Robotic Process Automation (RPA): a way of enabling computers to act automatically through software robots. These robots can be used to organize and format data, or schedule a meeting at a time when everyone who needs to attend is free.
Machine Learning: a tool that can process large amounts of data and use it to make accurate predictions and recommendations based on that information. For instance, you could train a program to analyze market data and predict a slump in the economy and actions to take to overcome it.
Generative AI: a tool trained on a huge variety of written text in order to be able to understand language and produce it. For example, a generative AI tool could read a novel and write a short summary of it for you, or translate German into English with an understanding of the nuances of each language.
All of these tools offer ways to get work done faster, with fewer resources, and less expense. Yet, the use of unsanctioned AI without human oversight runs the risk of errors being made without your knowledge.
Why Is AI So Valuable For Enterprise?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the answer to the modern expectation for enterprise to do more with less. AI tools are capable of sorting through tremendous amounts of data at an incredible speed without the need to employ human resource.
In the modern market, with changing customer and investor expectations and rapidly advancing technology, there’s a need to understand the situation rapidly and react in real time. The support of AI tools offers business leaders the ability to process and summarize market data and even automate complex decisions in real time, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world.
Of course, AI can’t do everything. Creative and strategic decisions are still best left to human beings, but small, straightforward, binary choices often need to be made very quickly, and AI can act on these options for you before you’re even aware of them.
Essentially, this allows your organization to take care of its daily running by itself, freeing you to concentrate on making strategic, long-term choices, armed with detailed information supplied by AI. These benefits, however, don’t come without risk, as entrusting an AI to make decisions for your business requires you to place a great deal of trust in your toolset.
The Risks Of AI Without Governance
Artificial intelligence (AI) governance protects you from the risks of AI, so that you can take advantage of the benefits. This is crucial as there is a greater amount of risk involved with AI than with similar revolutionary technologies.
As we have mentioned above, it’s fantastic to be able to allow your AI tools to take over the simple parts of your workload so that you can focus on the parts that really need your input. However, this requires you to be able to trust the AI to complete those tasks successfully, otherwise correcting AI mistakes could well take more effort than completing those tasks yourself.
Being able to trust AI with simple tasks requires both understanding how reliable your AI tool is, and also how crucial it is that you get the task right. If you’re setting AI to schedule meetings or take notes, then the occasional mistake is acceptable, but an error in your financial reporting could be a much bigger issue.
Robotic process automation (RPA) tools are only as accurate as you program them to be, which leaves the possibility of human error, while machine learning and generative AI tools are occasionally prone to ‘hallucination’, where they can confidently output incorrect information as the tool ‘believes’ it to be true. This is why it’s crucial to implement AI governance as a guardrail to ensure oversight detects hallucination before it impacts business-critical processes.
Yet, these aren’t the only risks for the use of AI. We know that there are serious ethical concerns that need to be addressed before AI can be leveraged.
Governments around the world are still debating the legality of AI tools having been trained on potentially copyrighted data. Not to mention, there is potential for racial, gender, and sexuality bias to exist within the outputs of AI tools without oversight.
Even further, the energy and water used to power and cool AI data centers is extensive and the impact on the environment could be severe. Organizations leveraging AI could be called on by regulators and the public the provide evidence of where your AI tools gained their energy and data.
Start With Your Discovery Data
Artificial intelligence (AI) governance is vital to ensure organizations can guarantee the safety of the AI tools they’re leveraging, as well as that they can report to regulators and the media on the risks of their AI. Yet, where do you start?
Our 2024 AI survey of 226 AI professionals showed that, despite 80% of organizations leveraging AI, only 19% of those we surveyed had an AI governance framework in place, something 97% believed was necessary. This is likely due to the fact that just 14% of respondents feel they have the oversight of their IT landscape that they need to implement AI governance.
REPORT: SAP LeanIX AI Survey Results 2024
Among other concerning statistics in the survey include:
- Only 15% of respondents feel prepared to comply with AI regulation
- 59% of experts are concerned about the legal consequences of AI technology
- 75% of those who answered the survey intend to increase their company’s investment in AI, regardless of the above statistics
With all this data, it becomes clear that experts believe that oversight of your AI landscape is key for AI governance, and therefore for the successful leveraging of AI capabilities. The best way to gain that oversight is SAP LeanIX.
SAP LeanIX For AI Discovery And Governance
Artificial intelligence (AI) governance is predicated on having a clear understanding of your IT landscape. To safely leverage AI, you need to have an understanding of where it fits into your infrastructure, how it works, what data and energy resources it’s using, and in what ways it’s safe to leverage.
SAP LeanIX offers you a range of automated tools that will help you map out your IT landscape, including where your employees are leveraging AI. By following that discovery data, you can map out your AI landscape and have a clear view of where you’re using AI, where you shouldn’t be using it, and where you need to be using it.
To find out more about how SAP LeanIX can empower you to safely leverage the power of AI, download our complete solution guide:
