Person
1 episodes · 19 quoted claims
Adriana Karaboutis says the technology and software industry leads enterprise AI adoption, using virtual assistants, chatbots and AI-driven cloud services.
“Tech and software clearly leading the path. It's part of the fabric of what they're doing. Virtual assistants, chatbots, ai driven cloud services, et cetera.”
Karaboutis says financial services is also a leading adopter of AI, using it for fraud detection, risk management and checking algorithms.
“Financial services, another industry way up there relative to their adoption around fraud, risk management, using it to check algorithms.”
Karaboutis describes a rough split inside companies of 10% AI experts, 40% experimenters or novices, and 10% who resist adoption.
“you still have about a 1040 4010 split, where it's 10 experts, 40 kind of people that are experimenting or in the novice phase, and then 10 that are actually”
In a survey by an organization Karaboutis calls North America Corporate Directors, tech, AI and cyber ranked in the top six trends directors worry about.
“Tech, AI and cyber were in the top six, along with geopolitical climate, et cetera.”
Karaboutis cites Samsung as an example where employees took company data into outside AI tools to create code or get insights, exposing potentially confidential information.
“We did see it some years ago and with Samsung, you know, hopefully done inadvertently, where people take data to the outside into these tools to either create code or get insights and then bring it back in.”
Karaboutis says that at a former company she imposed a lockdown of ten to fifteen days on AI tools while the company brought in its own instance, after telling the workforce.
“I said we're gonna lock down for a period of ten or fifteen days. But we let the workforce know this is coming.”
Karaboutis says boards use a skills matrix to assess which capabilities, such as financial expertise, they need among directors.
“Board of directors have what's called a skills matrix, and I would say all public company and I think private company as well, boards have these.”
Karaboutis says boards' skills matrices increasingly include cybersecurity and digital transformation, and she expects them to add AI.
“On those skills matrix, more and more we are saying cybersecurity, digital transformation, et cetera.”
Karaboutis says she joined the advisory board of an AI company, which she names as icreantree ai, that helps utilities, and that she holds a computer science degree.
“I myself have joined, you know, the advisory board, awesome company called icreantree ai. It's an artificial intelligence company that helps, even though I have a computer science degree and I'm tech savvy.”
Karaboutis says she has served on boards since 2015.
“And by the way, I've been doing boards for ten years, so it wasn't sort of I stopped full time and went into boards. I've been doing them since 2015.”
Karaboutis describes her move from operational roles to board work as 'rewiring' rather than retiring, a phrase she credits to a friend.
“When I stepped down from my last operational role, people said, Are you retiring? and I said, No, I'm rewiring”
Karaboutis says she believes Nestle has an AI ethics group, as an example of a company applying lines of defense to AI.
“Some big organizations, I believe a company, uh, Nestle, I believe, does this, where they have an F AI ethics group.”
Karaboutis says boards are trending toward applying the three-lines-of-defense model used for financial controls to AI oversight.
“We have the three stages, first, second, third line of threat vectors of, you know, financial controls. Well, it's this. It should be the same, and I would say is trending in that direction of three lines of defense around AI.”
Karaboutis says software and technology companies such as Microsoft and Google are rushing to use AI for competitive advantage.
“Software tech companies, I think, are rushing for advantage, no question. We're taking a look, whether it's the Microsofts, the the Googles, et cetera”
Karaboutis says boards do not ask ad hoc questions about headcount but instead check whether the company has enough specialists to achieve its strategy.
“Boards will not go in and say, um, you know, just, uh, uh, uh, sort of ad hoc. How many AI specialists do you have?”
Karaboutis says a board hires and fires only the chief executive, not the rest of the management team.
“We don't go, except for the chief executive, we don't hire and, and, you know, sort of fire the, you know, management team, et cetera.”
Karaboutis uses a locked front door, a safe and jewels as an analogy to explain defense in depth in cybersecurity to boards.
“I used to say, if you put a lock on the front door, but the jewels are sitting on the table, then not good, so maybe you have a safe”
Karaboutis says boards monitor the tension between AI's energy use and their ESG commitments but do not measure AI compute use against offsets one for one.
“As with any new technology, Lisa, there is what I call swings and roundabouts.”
Karaboutis notes her experience includes senior roles at Dell, Biogen and National Grid before becoming an independent board member.
“I've been doing boards for ten years”