Balancing AI integration and business resiliency: Insights from tech and healthcare leaders (Courtesy of the Jacksonville Business Journal) — The overwhelming theme of business strategy as of late seems to be one thing: “how do we incorporate artificial intelligence?”
With up-and-coming technology like AI, the promise of eased administrative burden and faster task completion is a game-changer for business owners. It’s also synonymous with increased risk.
That’s exactly what three industry experts from across the country discussed on a panel hosted at the University of North Florida early Tuesday morning — how to engage in ethical business during the so-called age of AI.
“Trust is hard to earn but easy to lose,” said Vaughn Alliton, a panelist and TIAA’s head of technology, data risk and compliance. “AI can help you lose that trust faster than any other technology.”
It’s easy to incorporate AI en masse in the modern age, particularly with a wealth of generative technology options out there. But bringing them into the fold responsibly, panelists agreed that’s the key.
TIAA — a financial services organization that provides retirement, insurance and investment services — is looking to the long-term implications of artificial intelligence, Alliton said, simultaneously endeavoring to be a conservative adopter and ‘AI first.’
According to the latest CEO Confidence Index, nearly three out of four CEOs surveyed (74%) said AI is a top investment priority, and 21% expect returns on their investment within a year, compared to 1% who said the same thing in 2024.
‘Human-in-the-loop’
Stemming off risks caused by AI begins and ends with one thing, panelists agreed: human oversight.
“Governance, governance and governance, with a little bit of governance sprinkled on top,” said Alyson Freeman, Dell Technologies director of innovation. “We’re not all the way there yet, but there has to be cross-functional AI teams with risk assessments.”
Known for its laptops and computers, Dell sells servers, storage and networking devices to organizations, like hospitals, to host their AI infrastructure, Freeman explained. The company’s employees also use AI internally, from sales and marketing to supply chain and software engineering.
Ensuring there is some sort of human-in-the-loop component to AI in businesses is the key to stemming off potential risks, panelists agreed, and helps those companies get in front of failures.
Emphasizing resiliency
Preparations like those also means making sure companies aren’t putting 100% of their operations into AI’s metaphorical hands.
“What happens when the AI doesn’t work? Does your company still run?” asked panelist Amy Boyer, risk chair for Mayo Clinic. “How are your people ready when that doesn’t happen — because it shouldn’t happen frequently, but it will happen occasionally where it just doesn’t turn on.”
Mayo Clinic at-large has spent the past decade gradually incorporating AI into its workflow. That’s from top-to-bottom, Boyer told attendees at UNF Tuesday.
Across the health system’s nationwide workforce of more than 80,000 people, Boyer said it’s used at the beginning of every conversation: “It isn’t something that is an option, it is something that is a requirement.”
It really comes down to business resiliency.
A more public-facing component of AI incorporation discussed by panelists was messaging. The speed at which companies are adopting AI remains among the top things that will shake up the future of the workplace.
Respondents from most of the companies in a survey by Resume.org said they had increased their investment in AI this year, with 27% reporting a significant increase and 41% noting a slight increase. Nearly three in 10 companies said they have already replaced jobs with AI, and 37% expect to replace roles with AI by the end of 2026.
The concern that AI may drive some jobs into extinction has been around ever since the generative technology exploded in popularity with ChatGPT in 2022.
“The generation that is coming out of college next, it’s not that there won’t be jobs. There’ll be different ways to do the jobs,” said Boyer. “This idea that ‘no one’s going to have a job in three years,’ I don’t see that in medicine, I don’t see that in the spaces that I work.”