More than half of global firms overestimate the maturity of their Responsible Artificial Intelligence (RAI) programme, according to a new survey conducted by BCG.
Even organisations that reported rolling out AI at scale overestimated their RAI progress: less than half have a fully mature RAI program. “We found that about 55 per cent of all organisations — from laggers to leaders — are less advanced than they believe,” the report stated. This finding is particularly important because an organisation cannot achieve true AI at scale without ensuring that it is developing AI systems responsibly.
This percentage is a tad lower in the GCC with 52 per cent of companies overestimating their RAI maturity. Europe and North America have the highest average RAI maturity. The recently released survey is discussed in an article titled “Are You Overestimating Your Responsible AI Maturity?”
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Achieving AI at scale not only requires building robust technical and human-enabling capabilities but also fully implementing an RAI program. For these organisations, falling short of full maturity across all RAI dimensions means that they have still not achieved their perceived level of at-scale AI deployment. This report stated that it is worrying because these organisations believe they have fully implemented RAI programs, they are not likely to make further investments, although gaps clearly remain.
Although C-suite executives and boards of directors are concerned with the organisational risks posed by a lapse of an AI system, the report argued that businesses should not pursue RAI simply to mitigate risk. Instead, organisations should view RAI as an opportunity to strengthen relationships with stakeholders and realize significant business benefits.
“It seems that most organisations agree. When asked to select the primary reason for pursuing RAI, more than 40 per cent chose its potential business benefits — more than twice the percentage that selected risk mitigation. Moreover, we found that as organisations’ RAI maturity grows, so does their motivation to capture business benefits through RAI. Simultaneously, the focus on risk mitigation decreases,” the report added.
