IBM says AI governance is key to scaling adoption

IBM says companies need strong governance to scale artificial intelligence (AI), especially in highly regulated industries. At its Think EMEA event in London, the company shared research on how organizations handle AI risks and incidents.

A survey found that 80% of companies surveyed said an AI incident had been escalated to board level. Of those, only 40% said they had used the incident to secure new governance investment or establish a policy. IBM Senior Vice President and Chair for EMEA and APAC Ana Paula Assis said security, accountability and responsibility help enable corporate AI adoption rather than slow it.

Assis said organizations face a challenge in balancing the pace of innovation with governance tools and processes that support safe AI deployment at scale. She also described AI as a key part of the architecture for agentic AI, saying companies need systems they can observe and govern to earn client trust.

In an earlier keynote at the event, IBM said AI-driven improvements to productivity and efficiency in core processes had generated savings of around $5.5 billion, which it could redirect to research and development and innovation. Assis said AI had become part of the business model, with leading organizations rethinking how systems, decisions and processes work together with it.