MIT Sloan Management Review Article on Why Top Management Should Focus on Responsible AI

MIT Sloan Management Review and BCG have assembled an international panel of AI experts that includes academics and practitioners to help us gain insights into how responsible artificial intelligence (RAI) is being implemented in organizations worldwide. This month’s question for our panelists: Should RAI be a top management agenda item at organizations across industries and geographies?1 Eighty-six percent of them (18 out of 21) agree or strongly agree that it should be. In aggregate, their replies offer a compelling rationale for top management to oversee RAI efforts. We distill and explain this rationale below.

We also conducted a global survey of more than 1,000 executives that generated similar findings: Eighty-two percent of managers in companies with at least $100 million in annual revenues agree or strongly agree that RAI should be part of their company’s top management agenda. Unfortunately, only half of the respondents in that same survey reported that RAI is in fact on their top management’s agenda — a dramatic gap between expectations and reality.

About the Author

David Kiron is editorial director of MIT Sloan Management Review. Elizabeth Renieris is guest editor for the MIT Sloan Management Review Responsible AI Big Idea program and founding director of the Notre Dame-IBM Technology Ethics Lab. Steven D. Mills is a managing director, partner, and chief AI ethics officer at Boston Consulting Group.

Learn more about MIT SMR.