The Secrets of AI Value Creation

7Building Stakeholder Trust

A lot of times, the failings are not in AI. They're human failings, and we're not willing to address the fact that there isn't a lot of diversity in the teams building the systems in the first place… . And you realise, if you're not thinking about the human problem, then AI isn't going to solve it for you.

—Vivienne Ming (executive chair and cofounder of Socos Labs)

One of the most significant challenges for AI initiatives has been building stakeholder trust. Trust plays a crucial role in creating value through AI because stakeholders are more likely to adopt and not resist an AI solution if they trust that it will deliver the promised benefits and does not create negative side effects (e.g. discrimination of customer groups that might lead to a lawsuit). But establishing trust is not a one‐dimensional task. To achieve success, AI initiatives must establish trust with all stakeholders, including the organisational leaders, employees, customers, as well as other groups of interest, such as regulators or investors.

However, the challenge of creating trust for technology adoption that AI is facing is not new. Since before the new millennium, enterprises have been undergoing digital transformation, yet the adoption of a data‐driven culture in most enterprises remains elusive. This is evidenced by the adoption challenges of dashboard technology, which, since the early 2000s, has been hailed as a platform for business intelligence, promising to visualise ...