I attended the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium in May, and listening to CIOs talk about the latest technologies (in this case, generative AI) reminded me of a time around 2010 when the same symposium was all about the cloud.
It's worth noting that the concerns about AI are very similar to the concerns I heard about the emerging cloud years ago: companies were concerned about governance (check), security (check), and responsible use of new technology (check).
But in 2010, the consumerization of IT had just begun, and employees wanted the same experience at work that they had at home. When IT rejected them, employees quickly turned to “shadow IT” to find solutions on their own. Rejection was the norm back then; unless you were completely locked down, it was easy for employees to act on their own.
Today, CIOs realize that even if they say no to generative AI, their employees will probably find a way to use these tools anyway. There are many legitimate concerns about this technology, such as illusions and IP ownership, but there are also concerns about security, compliance, and control, especially around data, which large organizations demand and need.
But even if the CIOs who spoke at the conference had similar concerns, they were far more realistic than they were 15 years ago.
“You know, everything is out there and it's becoming democratized,” Akira Bell, CIO of Mathematica, said during a panel called “Maintaining Competitive Advantage in the Age of AI.”
“I think someone said already this morning, 'We can't control this moment.' We can't and don't want to be the 'agent of no' and tell everybody what they can and can't do. But what we can do is help people understand the responsibility that they have as actors and users of these tools.”
Bell said that rather than saying no, the company is now looking at ways to promote responsible use of technology and improve customer experiences with AI: “So, one is governance, making sure the data is ready to be used and that employees understand and use best practices.”
The second takeaway, she said, is to think hard about how to use generative AI to enhance your core capabilities, and how to use generative AI on your clients' behalf to create, extend or change their existing service offerings to customers.
All of this is important, Bell said, because there's also a security component to consider. Her organization can provide guidance on how to use these tools in a way that aligns with the company's values, without cutting off access.
Angelica Tollizzo, CIO of GE Vernova, an alternative energy-focused spinout from GE, is taking a cautious approach to implementing generative AI. “We have a lot of pilots at different levels of maturity, and we probably haven't fully understood the potential, like a lot of other companies, so the costs and benefits don't always line up perfectly,” Tollizzo told TechCrunch. “We're still figuring out how to work with every piece of technology, how much we should partner with others, and what we should do in-house.” But the process is helping the company learn what works, what doesn't, and how to move forward as employees become more familiar with AI.
Chris Bedi, CDIO of ServiceNow, said that this will change in the coming years as employees start to demand access to AI tools. “From a talent perspective, this is a hot topic as organizations try to retain talent, but regardless of what the role is, people want the talent in their role to stay. I don't think it's conceivable to ask a company's employees to do their job without GenAI,” Bedi told TechCrunch. Moreover, he believes talent will start to demand GenAI and question why they want to do their jobs manually.
To that end, Bedi said his company is focused on educating employees about AI and how to develop an AI-savvy workforce, because without guidance, people won't necessarily understand how to get the most out of the technology.
“We created some learning pathways, and everyone in the company had to take AI 101,” he said. “We created it so that selective [levels] “201 and 301 are because we know that AI is the future and we need to get all our employees comfortable with it,” he said.
All of this suggests that while the concerns may be the same as with the last wave of tech innovation, IT executives have likely learned some lessons along the way. They understand that they can't just lock down. Instead, they have to find ways to help employees use generative AI tools safely and effectively, because if they don't, they'll start using them anyway.