Why Executives Can’t Get Comfortable With AI

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Why Executives Can’t Get Comfortable With AI

By Marc Pinski et al., | MIT Sloan Management Review | April 09, 2024

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IT experts have long lamented many executives’ limited knowledge of IT’s underlying functionality. In turn, many executives have (often unconsciously) declined to develop such IT literacy, preferring instead to focus their time and attention on domain and business matters.  However, recent evidence indicates that organizations that successfully unlock the strategic potential of artificial intelligence have executives and leaders who embody the opposite instinct: These leaders do have deeper knowledge of AI’s functionality.

Based on their research, the authors suggest a new guiding theme for executives’ AI literacy: Make technology-related discomfort a habit.  Here are three ways to develop and practice the habit of maintaining AI literacy.

1. Seek the Discomfort of Continual Learning About AI.  In order to navigate the business and technological implications of AI, executives must accept the discomfort of always being on the cutting edge with their own understanding of AI. There are two reasons for this. One, AI is an elusive (and now overused) label that encompasses technology tools with very different kinds of properties and applications.  Two, AI applications are changing at a furious rate, and the C-suite expects business leaders to keep up with the related transformation opportunities that open up.  Executives can implement technology-related discomfort into their routines. They should set up regular exchange sessions with AI experts in their organizations, attend educational technology programs tailored to executives, and allocate time to self-directed AI learning. 
2. Drive Boardwide Learning.  Some executives might not be interested in learning why AI is relevant to the organization and might perceive it as laborious. However, that labor is not optional anymore: AI is driving changes in processes across the enterprise so profound that they constitute significant strategic risks and opportunities within each executive’s areas of responsibility.  For this reason, part of promoting AI literacy for executives is recognizing that the whole board should embrace the discomfort.  By embracing technology-related discomfort as a collective endeavor, executive teams and board members can leverage their diverse perspectives to identify potential pitfalls and opportunities presented by AI.
3. Prepare for Unexpected Effects.  AI can cause unexpected, counterintuitive outcomes.  Despite the managerial urge to avoid the unexpected, executives should move forward on AI development but prepare as much as possible for unforeseen consequences.  How executives can best prepare for AI’s unexpected effects: Learn from your peers: Study other organizations’ AI implementations.  For executives building AI literacy, time studying AI project successes and failures and how they could be emulated, mitigated, or avoided is time well invested.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. IT experts have long lamented many executives’ limited knowledge of IT’s underlying functionality. In turn, many executives have (often unconsciously) declined to develop such IT literacy, preferring instead to focus their time and attention on domain and business matters.  However, recent evidence indicates that organizations that successfully unlock the strategic potential of artificial intelligence have executives and leaders who embody the opposite instinct: These leaders do have deeper knowledge of AI’s functionality.
2. three ways to develop and practice the habit of maintaining AI literacy: seek the Discomfort of Continual Learning About AI, Drive Boardwide Learning, and Prepare for Unexpected Effects.
3. The AI era demands a paradigm shift in executive thinking. No longer can leaders be content with a peripheral understanding of IT applications. By actively seeking out technology-related discomfort and transforming it into a relentless quest for AI literacy, executives can lead their organizations to success. 

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Topics:  Artificial Intelligence, Leadership, Board