EY: Scaling AI for CIOs: Managing Risk

While the roadmap for realizing AI change is clear, there are challenges that CIOs must first overcome to achieve the three key objectives outlined above.

First, “the relative infancy of the agenda represents a major challenge as it is a new frontier for CIOs at all levels,” says David, “bringing with it myriad learning curves.”

He continues: “For example, it is difficult to manage LLMs’ voracious appetite for data. The applicability of increasingly diverse datasets for Gen AI use cases increases the risk of proliferation and inadvertent exposure, leading to potential data security and privacy issues. Conversely, the lack of data availability for use cases can stifle innovation with a loss of opportunity costs.

“We’ve also seen a new phenomenon we call ‘vendor confusion.’ Hundreds of vendors offer templates, data stores, libraries, and other resources, making it difficult to navigate and determine the combination that works best. There is also a lack of agreement on the highest value use cases, resulting in long testing periods.”

Gen AI: a triumvirate of people, process and technology

Basically, says David successfully implement Gen AICIOs and IT operations must successfully balance people, processes and the technology itself to maximize impact.

“A successful implementation of Gen AI requires cross-collaboration at all levels of the organization,” notes David. “It’s about finding and training people with AI skills, adapting how work is done to use AI most effectively, and adding new AI tools to the current technology stack.

“CIOs must ensure their workforce is adequately trained to design, build and use Gen AI tools – such as co-pilots – effectively to support their daily work safely.

“Upskilling employees whose roles may have been impacted by Gen AI ensures they can focus on higher-value work and creates additional opportunities within the organization. Leadership should support the initiative to broadly incorporate Gen AI within the institution.”

He concludes: “It is equally important that CIOs update processes to incorporate Gen AI tools to add value, as well as create and modify processes to document critical knowledge held by employees.

“Additionally, CIOs must ensure that risk management and compliance processes evolve to measure and mitigate new types of risk.

“Finally, from a technology perspective, designing, building and scaling Gen AI tools will support the changing needs of the business in a secure and controlled manner.”

Source