Leveraging AI to improve Corporate Governance

Leveraging AI to improve Corporate Governance

Written exclusively for PICG
by Talha bin Hamid, Head of Training – PICG

Towards the end of 2022, the world changed – quietly, yet irrevocably.

A little thing called Chat GPT was released to the public on November 30, 2022. At first glance, it hardly seemed distinguishable from one of the many chatbots or search engines. Only when one typed a query into it, and witnessed the answer, that it dawned that it was, indeed, the beginning of a new era.

Chat GPT stands for Generative Pre-training Transformer. In plain English, it means that it is a software engine based on two ideas: ability to understand natural language, and to process large amounts of data very quickly. The end result is that when you ask it anything, it can respond like a human would – in crisp, professional language with intelligent data and analysis.

Make no mistake – this model is trained on human generated content and its algorithms are created by humans. However, this is where it starts. The chatbot learns continuously through a continuous expansion of its processing bandwidth and access to more and more material. It also learns through the users’ reactions and further queries in response to the answers it generates.

It is not perfect. There are some telltale linguistic patterns that betray its artificial roots, and at the moment it cannot distinguish between fact and fiction without fine tuning user input to ensure that. Therefore, its output needs tweaking, optimization, and fact checking. It is one of the few areas where search engines, like Google, still lead the way since they provide various AI-based and human-input tools to fine-tune a result and establish its authenticity.

That said, the advantages are numerous:

• The content generated by Chat GPT is not taken from anywhere, but rather, developed by the AI. Therefore, it is not subject to copyrights or intellectual property violations;
• Unlike search engines, it generates content that can then be tweaked and used;
• It can take away the toil of research and gathering data, and let the humans focus on analysis and decision-making.

In a way, Chat GPT represents a transition similar to what we witnessed with the advent of machine based data retention. Suddenly, all facts, figures, locations, and even names were retained by devices in our pockets. For reminders, we had calendars and task managers. Our brains had more space to process and analyze – in other words, act more like CPUs rather than hard drives. One piece of evidence is how open-book tests and exams are the norms today, as opposed to the trend a few decades ago where most examination was, essentially, a test of memory and retention.

These capabilities have the potential to provide invaluable assistance in ensuring better corporate governance in an organization. For example:

• It can help in drafting legal documents, such as TORs, SOPs, contracts, and bylaws.
• It can review contracts and documents for inconsistencies and errors.
• It can generate quick responses to questions raised during a meeting (such as, who are the market leaders in our product category?).
• It can assist with compliance and regulatory reporting by providing support with data collection and report generation, as well as data validation.
• It can provide guidance on best practices for corporate governance under various frameworks.
• It can help to automate and streamline internal communication and decision-making processes by providing various tools for data collection and analysis, and support for building tools such as chatbots and centralized information databases.

Of course, all of this is in its infancy and still requires human supervision and review. What Chat GPT, like other AI tools for image generation and other creative tasks, is most valuable for, is legwork: laying a lucid and logically consistent foundation on which more intellectual endeavors can be carried out.

The AI revolution is here. It can provide valuable tools and, in the very near future, will take away the need to allocate time and resources toward the mundane. That, in turn, translates to vast possibilities to improve and transform corporate governance. For starters: it just reviewed this article and suggested some very valid amendments!