Canadian Lawyer InHouse

MAY/JUNE 2019 42 INHOUSE W hen I left private practice and went in-house, I was given valuable advice from a mentor of mine. She said that my role is not just about being an advisor to my busi- ness clients and it was important that I not limit myself to being just a "legal risk man- ager." To be successful, I would have to be proactive. I would have to seize on those op- portunities to be a facilitator and assist my organization in navigating rapid changes that affect the marketplace and enable my clients to achieve business objectives. Artificial intelligence and its introduc - tion into business processes, products and services represents such an opportunity for in-house corporate counsel. We now find ourselves operating at the intersection of a dynamic legal, regulatory, social and eco - nomic environment where emerging tech- nologies present transformational opportu- nities when applied well and consequential risks when applied poorly. In such an envi- BY JONATHAN LEIBTAG ronment, and to echo the advice that was provided to me, corporate counsel cannot just be reactive and must move beyond just managing risk. We are well placed within our organization to take a leadership role and assist our businesses in proactively building and maintaining trust for these new tech - nologies, which is an essential component to successful AI adoption and deployment. THEARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCEOPPORTUNITY AI technologies are predicted to be one of the major economic driving forces in the 21 st century and organizations across all in- dustries are taking notice. A recent McKin- sey Study found that by 2030, 70 per cent of companies will have adopted AI technology in some form, with the potential to deliver additional economic activity of around $13 trillion or about 16-per-cent higher cumu - lative GDP compared with today. ALACKOFTRUSTANDUNDERSTANDING ISASIGNIFICANTBARRIERTO BREAKTHROUGHADOPTION There is a trust and understanding gap in Canada that is affecting Canadian busi- nesses from capturing this AI opportunity. A Deloitte report published in November 2018 found that Canadians generally do not understand AI or its implications. The report cited a survey of more than 1,000 Canadians and found that only four per cent of respondents were confident explain - ing what AI is and how it works. Further- more, the report found that there is general distrust of AI among Canadians rooted in, among other things, ethical concerns about the unintended consequences of AI-gen- erated decisions and the potential of AI to manipulate information. Canadians believe that businesses have a responsibility to tackle the challenges posed by AI to society such as data protection, pri - vacy, cybersecurity and ethical risks; how- ever, they lack confidence in the abilities of business to do so. Just one in 10 Canadians surveyed in the report believe that business- es are up to the task. The role AI adoption of in-house in Corporate counsel can show leadership in development of strategy around artificial intelligence.

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