Athena Alliance Releases AI Governance Playbook

Athena Alliance, a community that works to advance women into leadership roles and onto boards, released the “AI Governance Playbook for Boards and Management” that serves to guide boards and management through ethical and strategic decisions to harness AI's potential responsibly. According to the Playbook, it is designed to “provide a human-centered, multidisciplinary view of the key governance issues of such technology and to give leaders a framework for how to apply effective oversight, even as our collective understanding of the uses, implications, opportunities and risks continues to evolve.” While it is geared more toward corporate boards, the Playbook has several areas that may help guide fund boards. The Playbook breaks AI Governance into five distinct pillars:

• AI Oversight and the Duty of Care
• Ethics, Risk and Responsible Stewardship
• Oversight of Strategy and Adaptability
• Holistic Situational Awareness
• Talent, Incentives and Culture

Each pillar contains considerations, recommendations, and questions for board members to ask of the management team. The Playbook notes that when discussing AI, boards and their management “should consider critical aspects including accountability and risk assessments, cybersecurity, data management, fairness and ethics, human capital oversight, privacy, transparency and securing trust of customers and other key stakeholders.” The authors’ also highlight the need for boards and management to integrate AI into service provider discussions and oversight.

Click here to read the Athena Alliance “AI Governance Playbook for Boards and Management.”