Artificial Intelligence (AI) has great potential to revolutionize business operations and drive efficiency, innovation, and improved customer and employee experiences. However, integrating AI into business processes requires careful, intentional planning and robust governance to ensure its ethical, legal, and effective use. As a leader in enterprise customer experience (CX), Avaya has a deep understanding of the relationship between thoughtful AI governance and its impact on CX.
Organizations looking to integrate AI into their business, especially in customer service and contact center environments, should consider implementing a governance framework and corresponding best practices to maximize the value of their AI investments by improving customer and employee experiences.
The Importance of AI Governance
“AI governance” refers to the policies, procedures, and structures that oversee the development, deployment, and use of AI within an organization. Effective AI governance ensures that AI systems are used responsibly, ethically, and in compliance with relevant laws and regulations.
A robust AI governance framework can help companies:
- Mitigate the risk: Identify and address legal, ethical and reputational risks related to AI.
- Ensuring accountability: Establish clear roles and responsibilities for AI initiatives to ensure all aspects of AI governance are considered.
- Promote transparency: Transparency and explainability of AI systems are essential to ensure that these new tools are well-received and that skepticism and resistance to their adoption are minimized.
- Foster Trust: Build trust among your customers, employees, and stakeholders by demonstrating transparency, accountability, and a commitment to the responsible use of AI.
To be most effective, it is useful to align governance systems with the “PAR” framework to ensure they are proactive, adaptive and reactive.
- aggressiveAI governance must go beyond the current legal situation to anticipate upcoming changes in the law and incorporate a broader ethical perspective to address concerns that may not have been legally considered at the time.
- Adaptive: Having an agile, multidisciplinary governance program is essential to adapt to rapid changes in technology and law. It's clear that AI innovation continues to evolve rapidly with no signs of slowing down. Therefore, organizations need to ensure their governance programs are flexible and can easily adapt to changing conditions.
- ReactiveAll governance programs must be reactive and ready to change guidelines to comply with existing laws and salient ethical concerns.
AI Integration Best Practices
1. Establish a clear AI strategy
Before integrating AI, a business needs to develop a clear system and strategy that aligns with its overall goals and objectives. This strategy should outline specific use cases for AI, the expected benefits and risks, and the resources required for implementation.
2. Establish an AI governance committee
Establishing an AI governance committee is essential to oversee your AI initiatives. This committee should include representatives from various business units, including IT, legal, HR, customer service, and AI experts. Committee responsibilities include:
- AI Project Evaluation: Evaluate the feasibility, risks, and benefits of proposed AI projects.
- Compliance monitoring: Ensure that AI systems comply with legal and ethical standards.
- Review results: Regularly review the performance and impact of your AI systems.
3. Developing a comprehensive AI policy
Your AI policy should clearly define the acceptable and prohibited uses of AI within your organization. Key areas to cover include:
- Data privacy and security: Ensuring that AI systems process data responsibly and securely.
- Bias and fairness: Implement measures to detect and mitigate bias in AI algorithms and training data.
- Transparency: Provide explanations for AI decisions so users at all levels can understand AI systems.
4. Conduct rigorous quality checks
Quality assurance is essential to ensure that AI systems function correctly and produce reliable outputs. Regular audits and testing should be conducted to identify and address issues. For example, customer service should check AI systems' responses for accuracy and compliance with ethical guidelines.
5. Train employees and stakeholders
Employees and stakeholders need to be educated about the AI tools being used and their impacts to fill any potential gaps in skills and understanding. Training programs should cover the following:
- AI Fundamentals: Understand what AI is, how it works, and its most effective use cases.
- Ethical considerations: Recognize the ethical implications of using AI.
- Practical Applications: Learn how to effectively use AI tools in your daily work.
6. Cultivate a culture of continuous improvement
AI technology and the regulatory environment surrounding it are constantly evolving, and companies need to stay informed and agile to keep up with these advancements. Foster a culture of continuous improvement by:
- Stay up to date: Stay up to date with the latest AI developments and best practices.
- Encourage feedback: Collect feedback from users to identify areas for improvement.
- Iterate the solution: Regularly update and refine your AI system based on feedback and new insights.
Integrating AI into business operations offers great potential for innovation and efficiency. However, this potential cannot be pursued lightly and can only be fully realized with a robust governance framework that ensures responsible, ethical and compliant use of AI. By implementing this framework, following best practices and focusing on improving customer and employee experiences, companies can successfully leverage AI to drive growth and success.
