AI Essentials
Role-focused · Situation-led · Judgement-supporting
Understanding AI through the responsibilities you carry
Artificial intelligence increasingly intersects with the responsibilities of people who govern, lead and manage organisations.
Different organisational roles encounter AI from different perspectives. The matters a person needs to understand, consider and question will depend upon the responsibilities they carry and the situations they face.
AI Essentials are substantial, role-focused publications designed to help people understand AI matters relevant to their responsibilities and exercise informed judgement.
They do not seek to turn readers into AI specialists. Instead, they provide sufficient understanding to help readers engage effectively with AI-related matters, communicate with others, ask appropriate questions, evaluate information and evidence, anticipate implications, and make their own judgements.
Role-Focused
AI Essentials begin with the responsibilities and perspective of a defined organisational role rather than with AI technology itself. They focus on the AI matters that may become relevant to people carrying those responsibilities.
Situation & Question-Led
AI Essentials consider situations the reader may encounter, why they matter, what should be considered and questions worth asking. They support practical engagement rather than simply providing information about AI.
Human Judgement
AI Essentials support understanding, questioning and evaluation. They do not prescribe decisions, replace professional expertise or substitute for the judgement and responsibilities of the people using them.
Practical understanding
AI Essentials — Understanding AI Through the Responsibilities You Carry
AI does not affect every organisational role in the same way.
A person responsible for governance may need to consider AI through questions of accountability, strategy, risk and oversight. Someone with different organisational responsibilities may encounter AI through different decisions, activities, dependencies and consequences.
AI Essentials therefore approach AI through the responsibilities, situations and judgement requirements of the intended reader.
Depending upon the role, they may help the reader to:
- understand AI matters relevant to their responsibilities;
- communicate more effectively with management, specialists and others;
- ask informed questions and engage with the answers;
- evaluate information, evidence and assurance;
- recognise matters that may otherwise be overlooked;
- anticipate implications as organisational use of AI develops; and
- exercise their own informed judgement.
The purpose is not to tell the reader what decision to make. It is to help the reader be better prepared to make that decision themselves.
An evolving role-focused series
Developed selectively around meaningful needs
AI Essentials is intended to develop over time across different organisational roles and responsibilities.
The matters people need to understand, consider and question about AI differ according to the responsibilities they carry. A Board Director, senior executive, functional leader or other professional may encounter AI from quite different perspectives and require different forms of understanding.
Future AI Essentials will therefore be developed selectively where AISF identifies a meaningful role-specific need and can provide a resource of sufficient substance and practical value. Each will be developed for the responsibilities, situations and judgement requirements of its intended reader rather than by simply adapting a common template.
AI Essential for Directors
AI is progressively becoming part of the organisations that Directors govern—sometimes visibly, sometimes less obviously, and at different rates across different activities.
Directors do not need to become AI specialists. They do, however, need sufficient understanding to engage with AI-related matters that come before the Board, communicate effectively with management and specialists, ask appropriate questions, evaluate the answers and evidence they receive, and exercise independent Board judgement.
Developed as a substantial, situation-based and question-led resource, it considers AI through matters familiar to Board members, including governance, strategy, investment, risk, performance, people, assurance and organisational change.
Rather than prescribing what a Board should decide, it helps Directors consider what matters, why it matters, what they may need to understand and what questions may be worth asking.
The publication link will become active when AI Essential for Directors is released.