Like you, I’ve spent a lot of time tracking AI’s features and foibles. And somewhat to my surprise, I find that I’ve become something of a fan! Not unconditionally, but a fan nonetheless.
At first, I was fascinated by the technology but frustrated that we were spending so much time worrying about its impact on our jobs and lives, rather than figuring out whether it has actual value in a governance context.
It hallucinates! It threatens our privacy and security! It’s prone to bias! It’s going to take over the world!
I also was skeptical about vendor claims about how they are incorporating AI into their governance applications – and I still am, since many really still aren’t, and others use the term as clickbait.
BUT – having now spent considerable time working with clients and on my own to understand whether, where, and how it can help us get the most value possible from our information, I can honestly say I’m becoming a fan … under the following conditions:
- You curate a small language model that reflects your particular vocabulary, concepts, and context.
- You ensure it operates on verified quality information. “Garbage in, garbage out” is still very much a thing.
- You make human oversight non-negotiable. AI should augment decision-making, not replace it.
- You deploy based on clear use cases rather than broad capabilities. Many tools do the same things, so consider their specific strengths in your environment.
Do these things, and AI can help in all kinds of ways: to reduce legal hold costs, improve classification accuracy, automate routine compliance checks, identify retention risks we’d otherwise miss, surface relevant policies during reviews, and flag inconsistencies across massive document repositories that would take months to find manually.
To be clear: my reluctant fandom doesn’t stem from the technology getting smarter. Rather, it has to do with us getting better about articulating the business problems we’re trying to solve.
Because if you can’t do that, then you’ll never realize the value you expected – from AI or any other tool.
Have a question? Need to know more? Want to get value from your AI initiative? Reach me today and let’s talk!
Steve Weissman, Founder & CEO, Holly Group • “The Info Gov Guy™” • steve@hollygroup.com • 617-383-4655 • Member, AIIM Company of Fellows • Recipient, AIIM Award of Merit