Webinar

Transformation forum: managing the impact of AI, climate change, and geopolitics

By:

Carolyn Hicks

02 Dec 20245 min read

In our recent Transformation Forum 'Change your Organisation, Change your world,' we were joined by industry experts to discuss the three major facets of change that businesses are facing today. Carolyn Hicks shares the key takeaways on the impacts of AI, climate change, and geopolitics.

Contents

A purpose-driven model can help organisations mitigate risks and find opportunities to have an impact beyond the 'walls' of their businesses. It can also foster solutions to the global problems caused by these pressures through developing new technologies, products, and services which can create jobs, drive growth, and support community development. In our recent webinar the panel shared solutions for managing the impacts of AI, climate risks, and geopolitical tensions.

Artificial intelligence: mitigating implementation risk

Our recent pulse survey showed that the number one skill C-Suite leaders want to bring into their organisations is AI and automation expertise. However, it's important for organisations to incorporate this more widely than just their tech teams and upskill across all levels and talent generations of their workforce. While this provides countless new opportunities, it also creates risks.

Organisations need to be aware that the outputs of AI are only as good as the inputs. In particular there's a high risk of bias due to historical data that already exists in the world today. This bias can lead to skewed outcomes which lead to customer and employee distrust.

Liz Gebhard, Global Commercial and Technology Executive with 20+ years at Amazon and Target, shares her recommendations for mitigating risk when integrating AI into your organisations.

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Responding to climate change through collaborative partnerships

It’s important for businesses to adopt purpose-lead thinking that's outside BAU. By thinking outside of operational boundaries, organisations can play a proactive role in their broader environment.

Andrew Brown, Group Chief Sustainability Officer at Anglian Water, explains the benefit of fostering collaborative partnerships to integrate separate investment for projects that overcome environmental challenges – collaborative solutions for common problems.

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Navigating geopolitical tensions

Geopolitics is impacting organisations significantly as boards are aware of the high stakes of getting it wrong. In a world of polarising views, cancel culture, instability, conflict and human rights abuses, more is expected from leaders as it's no longer okay to be silent on some of the issues.

Leaders are expected to address them, which requires new skills and a workplace culture that promotes inclusion and diverse perspectives.

Jenn Barnett, Head of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and ESG, shares the three tips she has for organisations to think about their broader impact.

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Q&A: answering your questions

The panel share their thoughts on a few questions here.

01 AI is really powerful, but can be prone to hallucinations and bias. How do you see this developing and how can organisations put guardrails around AI use to protect their customers and people?

"AI is ultimately only as good as the inputs coming in. It's important to understand where the source is and if there are opportunities to continue to evolve and improve through source data and models. AI is learning so it's critical to have humans in the loop to continue to monitor the progress. The term 'hallucinations' refers to inaccurate or nonsensical information and is a known challenge with the rise of generative AI.

The main way to address this and reduce risk are by

improving model training and context understanding

using more specialised models

increasing transparency in AI models and identified hallucinations.

To best leverage AI while protecting customers and people against poor outputs and bias, organisations need to ensure there are clear processes, audits, ethics and guidelines in place."

Liz Gebhard

02 Will the recent US election results impact the progress of sustainability goals in UK businesses?

"There's undoubtedly a nervousness at the moment, but from an ED&I perspective, UK organisations who took ED&I seriously, have invested in it and have mature strategies are continuing to focus attention and investment on the business benefits of this.

In terms of ESG, this is an increasing requirement from regulators and clients. We have EU and UK regulations that guide us around our environmental principles and how we achieve them, we have strong human rights laws. We have businesses where this is part of their brand and DNA, but I do think this will undoubtedly have an impact on the way that people are feeling and thinking right now."

Jenn Barnett

03 What are the real challenges for creating a collaborative solution to a common problem?

"We have found great benefit in creating longer term contracts with suppliers to develop a closer bond and form an alliance. At the beginning, it's easy to win over the hearts and minds, but over time as new people join, you must remember to continue to go through that process and help them to understand the ‘why’ behind what you’re doing.

People also don’t expect businesses to be engaging in more purpose-driven collaborative work, such as place-based regeneration, and constantly ask 'why, what’s in this for you?' It might be that the new benefits to your organisation are less tangible in the beginning, but from our experience, if you give a long term commitment you will see plenty of opportunities arise over time."

Andy Brown