The proliferation of artificial intelligence, as well as the promised business cases promoting its use, has led companies around the world to quickly invest in the technology. Companies say they’re testing and deploying systems ranging from off-the-shelf chatbots to bespoke databases and writing aids. Company leadership hopes these AI tools will improve efficiencies, reduce costs, and help them stay competitive. But it could lead to just the opposite. 

Industry watchers say that as a broader range of companies buy in, an increasing number of organizations are unaware whether the AI technologies they have deployed are legally safe; where the data these systems are trained on has come from; or whether they as users–and not necessarily the firms that have developed the technology–may find themselves in the firing line with regulators for any incidence of noncompliance. 

Added to that, companies lack awareness that AI misuse can result in penalties from several different regulators at the same time–and not just in one jurisdiction.