Behind the Ballot: Strategic Vision
Our members asked board election candidates: How do you see artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies shaping the future of business continuity and operational resilience over the next 5–10 years? And what role should the BCI play in guiding its members through the adoption of these technologies?
Matthew McDonough
As an advocate for digital transformation and the use of technology to strengthen resilience capabilities, I believe the use of AI and emerging technologies will significantly change the way in which we manage resilience within organizations. In addition to this, AI and emerging technologies also present us with an increased threat and risk. We are already witnessing AI enhancing risk identification, horizon scanning, analytics and decision support, enabling our organizations to identify threats earlier and respond quicker and effectively. As the utilisation of AI technologies increases, we are already starting to see the emergence of new risks surrounding cyber threats, data privacy and an over-reliance on automation. Whilst we should understand how to leverage the technologies, we will also need to stress the importance of understanding the risks they create. In the development of resilience capabilities, I’ve actively enabled the use of AI whilst ensuring it complements rather than replaces human decision-making. I’ve seen first-hand how AI can enhance decision-making, it is important to ensure that accountability remains with our leaders, who must ensure the decisions are legal, defensible and justifiable.
As a trusted professional institute, setting standards, competencies and guiding professionals, the BCI has an important role to play in helping its members navigate the risks and opportunities presented by AI and emerging technologies. Through its own leadership and professional development, the BCI can enable its practitioners to utilise the technologies effectively and responsibly. When it comes to the areas where technologies can be used responsibly, the BCI has an opportunity to set the standards within the industry, and enable the sharing of information with practitioners, industries and regions. Due to the challenges presented by the speed of AI and technology adoption, the BCI itself will need to leverage its own technologies to have any chance of staying ahead of the industry. Importantly, whilst technologies can enhance resilience, governance and decision support, the BCI should promote the principle that the accountability and decision-making remain firmly with people.
Mikaiiro Laitinen
Given the current speed by which AI solutions develop and adding quantum computing to the mix I would say that 5–10 years seems like an eternity and visions that long exceed the visions provided by my crystal ball. The AI-related worries such as AI being used in cyber-attacks, hallucination or degeneration of human thinking on one side and unprecedented potential such as solving deep mathematical problems, helping diagnose fatal illnesses more accurately on the other produces ambivalent feelings. To hazard a guess, I think that the developments will follow those seen in, for example, the financial services sector: routine tasks such as performing BIAs or sketching alternate solutions for BCPs will eventually decline as human work. Human interaction will likely be needed for verification and approvement. For better or worse, we are truly living in interesting times.
I want to believe that the BCI should not address AI, quantum computing, or any future technologies as such, but help the community to make sense of how these developments change the industry, threat landscape, and leadership. If we adopt the view that business continuity is a different concept than resilience (operational or otherwise), I think we will need to emphasize the resilience practice more in the future. Many of the current practitioners will likely need to take a more strategic stance. The BCI is already providing us with tools such as the GPG and the upcoming operational resilience mini-GPG towards this direction. Helping our members to understand the wider perspective of operational and organizational resilience will surely help us all thrive.
Rina Singh
Whilst AI will improve activities such as BIAs, dependency mapping, scenario planning and aspects of incident response, I believe the bigger shift will be in the capabilities required of resilience professionals. As organizations become increasingly reliant on cloud services, digital supply chains and AI-enabled solutions, understanding how critical services operate and where dependencies exist will become as important as traditional business continuity expertise. We are already seeing services outsourced through multiple layers of providers, making it increasingly difficult to understand the true impact of disruption. As technology ecosystems become more complex, resilience professionals will need to become far more technology-literate to identify, assess and manage these dependencies effectively. Over the next 5-10 years, the challenge will be less about adopting new technologies and more about understanding the increasingly complex dependencies they create. Resilience professionals will need a much deeper understanding of technology ecosystems than has traditionally been required.
One of the BCI's most valuable contributions could be helping members understand how AI and emerging technologies can be applied across business continuity and operational resilience activities. Practical guidance within the Good Practice Guidelines on areas such as BIAs, dependency mapping, scenario development, exercising and incident response could help practitioners apply these technologies in a meaningful way. As technology landscapes differ significantly between organizations, a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to work. The BCI could help practitioners understand not only where technology adds value, but also how to challenge assumptions, validate outputs and identify the dependencies sitting behind them. The Institute could also help the profession separate hype from practical application by sharing real-world experiences and emerging good practice. In my view, its greatest contribution would be helping practitioners ask better questions, make better decisions and understand the implications of the technology they increasingly rely upon.
Sandra Bartley MBCI
I think AI is a useful tool, but there is ALWAYS the need for a human in the loop. AI is still new and some of the data it produces is not correct, so the data will always need to be reviewed before sending it out to ensure it is correct. Also, AI does not have a heart and to ensure BC professionals understand and want to do BC it needs to be from head to heart, I truly believe this.
BCI needs to be, if possible, leading in guiding members to adopt and use these technologies, and sharing it with members via webinars, forums, Linkedin, and workshops.
Russ Parramore
I believe that within the next few years AI will become integrated fully into business continuity. I believe that we may reach a stage where we can use it to complete a BIA and AI will then hold that information for use at the time of a disruption. When a disruption occurs, we should be able to give the location and details of the incident, at which stage AI will provide a list of actions which need to be completed in order to return to 'new normal'. I also believe that AI can write exercises and help prepare incident management teams.
The BCI needs to have someone who is an expert in AI employed to assist members with queries, whether this is through training or a reactive response to questions. Perhaps the addition of an AI training course to the certified training, which the BCI already has, would be a possible way forward.
Atiq Bajwa
The emerging technologies including AI will have significant impact on the future of business continuity and operational resilience over next 5 to 10 years. I expect AI to scan the horizon for emerging risks on a regular basis, automate business impact analyses, and keep BIAs and BCPs current through frequent review. This will free the practitioners to spend their time on judgment and decisions. As a Chief Risk Officer presenting to the Board and its committees, I see the other side too. AI adds new risks, including cyber-attacks, deepfakes and dependence on a few technology providers. Boards will ask whether critical services still run when AI fails, so continuity programs need human oversight and tested manual fallbacks.
As a practitioner, I want BCI to help the practitioner adopt AI safely and with confidence. BCI could publish simple guidance on where AI fits in the BCM lifecycle, such as BIAs, horizon scanning and plan reviews, and where human judgment must stay in charge. BCI should update the Good Practice Guidelines and certification content to cover AI skills, supported by short training and real case studies. Chapters can run workshops, so members share lessons learned, including local regulation and data sovereignty.
Penny Killow
There are pros and cons. Pros are the efficiencies, such as ability to review and find information very quickly from within the data we collect. This will lead to smart assessments being made on dependencies and more focused actions to improve resilience, if not contingency planning. How the BC practitioner works with the business reducing the duplication of data and effort will provide stronger conversations and increased value add by focusing on specialist knowledge.
Cons include the high vigilance on data protection, vulnerabilities to the agile bad actors but also human error trying to keep pace with the rate of AI changes. Also, the potential for reduced people could result in greater concentration of decision makers and in a crisis event less leadership depth. Without the tiers of the workforce, succession planning will also become an issue that can impact resilience capability.
BCI has an opportunity to provide best practice examples that will help all professionals deliver proportional solutions back to their organizations. This can be done via creating training courses (or amending existing ones) and hosting relevant webinars and collaborating with cutting edge technology providers to provide insights to the future deployments and how practitioners can adapt.
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