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AI in Boardroom Strategies: Navigating the Future with Resilience & Vision
The (Tristar) IOD UAE Global Convention 2025, hosted under the theme “Boards in a Rapidly Changing World: Innovative Strategies for Resilience and Sustainability,” served as a pivotal forum for global leaders to deliberate on the transformative role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in shaping boardroom decisions. As AI transitions from a disruptive force to a cornerstone of corporate strategy, boards must strike a delicate balance between harnessing its potential and mitigating its risks ensuring that innovation aligns with long-term resilience and sustainability.
The discourse at the convention underscored a critical realization: While AI presents unparalleled opportunities, its governance cannot be an afterthought. Some proponents advocate for dedicated AI risk committees, given the technology's profound linkages to global risks, existential threats, and systemic vulnerabilities. The challenge for boards is to move beyond the hype and embed AI oversight into core governance frameworks ensuring accountability, transparency, and ethical deployment.
The global business landscape is witnessing rapid transformation geopolitical shifts, economic realignments, and the ever-accelerating digital revolution.
Against a backdrop of geopolitical volatility, supply chain reconfiguration, and economic nationalism, boards must reassess their strategic priorities. The shift toward localized manufacturing, de-risking critical sectors (such as semiconductors and rare minerals), and navigating a higher-cost operating environment demands a recalibration of traditional business models. Key questions loom large:
• Is the organization prepared for elevated costs of capital, labor, and green energy transitions?
• How can companies optimize efficiency while fortifying resilience in an era of deglobalization?
The consensus? AI will be both an enabler and a disruptor enhancing predictive analytics, optimizing supply chains, and driving innovation, yet introducing new dimensions of cyber, regulatory, and operational risk.
As Generative AI (Gen AI) matures from buzzword to business imperative, boards must develop a nuanced understanding of its applications, value drivers, and risk exposures. According to insights from corporate leaders at the convention, successful adoption hinges on:
• Leadership Commitment: Driving cultural and operational change to integrate AI into workflows.
• Risk Mitigation: Addressing data integrity, bias, IP risks, and compliance with evolving AI regulations.
• Strategic Deployment: Determining when, where, and how to implement AI whether through inhouse development or third-party solutions.
KPMG's projections reinforce that Gen AI will dominate boardroom agendas in 2025, compelling directors to scrutinize decision-making protocols around AI model deployment.
While AI unlocks unprecedented efficiencies, dependence on AI-driven infrastructures introduces vulnerabilities exposing organizations to cyber threats, geopolitical exploitation, and systemic failures. Boards must prioritize critical applications over peripheral functions, ensuring AI investments align with core business objectives and risk tolerance.
As Prof. Colin Coulson-Thomas, a pioneer in corporate transformation, aptly noted, digital technologies will redefine organizational agility. However, with the World Economic Forum ranking AI among the top global risks, boards must approach its adoption with strategic foresight and rigorous governance.
The mandate is clear: The future belongs to organizations that can harness AI's potential while safeguarding against its perils. For boards, this means embedding AI literacy, fostering cross-functional oversight, and championing ethical innovation ensuring that resilience and sustainability remain at the heart of corporate strategy.
The era of AI-driven governance is here. The question is: Is your board ready?
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Pradeep Chaturvedi
Vice President - Institute of Directors
He is former Advisor FAO & former Chairman, Institution of Engineers, Delhi. He is a Mechanical Engineer & has been involved with Environment & Energy Policy (planning & implementation) of energy projects under the UN Agencies for over three decades in India & other Asian and Pacific countries. He is Vice-President, World Environment Foundation & Institute of Directors, India.
Owned by: Institute of Directors, India
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