Artificial intelligence is advancing faster than most organizations can govern it. As enterprises race to keep pace, a focus on smart governance is emerging to balance AI innovation with necessary oversight.

For many enterprises, the belief is that for artificial intelligence to truly thrive, its risks must be managed and trust must be built through simpler, more effective governance. For AI to truly flourish, organizations need governance systems to manage its risks, track its actions and ensure it’s used responsibly, according to Guru Sethupathy (pictured), founder and chief executive officer of FairNow Inc.

FairNow’s Guru Sethupathy talks with theCUBE about smart governance.

“Me and my team have lived the pain of AI governance and how manual it is,” Sethupathy said. “Our whole thesis was like, ‘Hey, let’s reduce the frictions around AI governance. Let’s make it simpler so that then people can focus on implementing AI.’”

Sethupathy spoke with theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight at Audit & Beyond, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the growing need for smart governance and how smart governance can drive innovation. (* Disclosure below.)

Why Smart governance is critical

In October, AuditBoard Inc. announced it had acquired FairNow in order to expand its AI governance capabilities. FairNow’s proposition is that technology is already advanced enough that companies have a decade’s worth of work ahead just implementing today’s AI, without needing to wait for it to improve further, according to Sethupathy.

“What needs to happen are two things,” he said. “This is where we come in. One is just figuring out where are you going to adopt AI in your organization? And the second is how are you going to govern it?”

In the near future, companies may operate dozens or even hundreds of AI systems across their organizations, taking on roles once held by people. This raises critical questions about whether those systems are functioning as intended while producing trustworthy outputs, according to Sethupathy.

“Think about all of those really complicated questions,” he said. “If you’re not governing that, there’s huge amounts of business risk.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Audit & Beyond:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the Audit & Beyond event. Neither AuditBoard, the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE