LOOKING AHEAD “GUIDERAILS” FOR SUCCESS These survey results show a technology that is still emergent – rapidly being adopted Taken together, these findings and applied, and still on a journey to achieve its full impact. There is still an opening in reveal significant momentum which to build the “guiderails” that ultimately will be needed to successfully manage behind AI, leaving little doubt its powerful potential. Fortunately, there are also clear signals in this data that such that it is poised to emerge as a guiderails are already being constructed among the emerging “best practices” transformative force in business, spotlighted previously in this report. With successful AI adopters addressing important government and society. areas such as oversight, ethics and processes, there’s also a sense that more work remains in these areas, and there may be others yet to be identified. The real question is how we manage this progress – personally, culturally, COMBINING COMPETENCIES societally, and within businesses, governments and other organizations. As AI matures as a core enabling technology, we anticipate that some of the most History is replete with examples of exciting developments will occur at the intersection of various AI and other leading- technologies that bolted in front of the edge technological advancements. For example, what happens when you combine structures and processes on which we AI and the Internet of Things, or automation and mobility? Expect to see breakout typically rely to get more value from developments from such combinations, which may signal growing maturity in the AI them while keeping risk in check. As a space and which will foster new opportunities and new sets of best practices to master. result, leaders struggled to play catch- up, as these technologies continued their forward march. THE TRUST FACTOR Do we trust AI? Overall, these results suggest that at minimum, business and government leaders do. But many are rightfully concerned about their employees’ lack of trust in AI, manifested in their concerns about its impact on their jobs. And there are even signs that some of these leaders harbor pockets of doubt about the extent to which they can trust AI outputs. Trust will play perhaps a larger role in the evolution of AI than it has for any technology in recent memory. That’s because of its self-perpetuating automation – when it is working as designed, AI is using data to “learn” and evolve on its own, often leading to outputs that few could have anticipated. It’s far easier for humans to trust technologies over which they exercise full, constant control. AI, by contrast, demands a leap of faith. Once we learn how to balance our desire to control AI with the flexibility it requires to operate at its highest level, AI will engender real trust. Getting there will require education, transparency, clear ethical guidelines – and patience. 20