Extranet Systems CEO on why AI governance is important

Amro Elmasry at the MSP breaks down AI benefits for partners and customers.

As more partners deal with an increase in AI use from both customer and end-user, they need to have an understand of governance as they implement the technology into their business.

Amro Elmasry, CEO, at solution provider Extranet Systems told CRN Australia at the recent Acronis MSP Connect that organisations need the right infrastructure and network, but also governance.

“If I don't have enough governance as well, the AI will just get out of hand like any AI platform or machine learning, it's just going to get out of hand,” he said.

“The governance is very important because it is that process of who has access to what, what should be exposed, what shouldn’t be exposed, what processes do we have to have in place to make it work, and the scalability as well.”

As Extranet Systems works within several sectors like health, education, and banking, Elmasry has noticed a number of trends emerging.

One is that some HR leaders are hesitant in using AI for fear of being replaced.

“There's a bit of a worry there and a lot of resistance [around AI], we’ve actually noticed that in the HR space for some reason,” he said.

“Where the pre-screening of applicants, lots of AI products that do it, there are lots of blockers and stoppers that we notice with some of our customers that don't want to use it.

“The customer wants to use it, the boards want to use it, but the end users don't think about look I'm going to save my time to do something else. They sometimes they think of it was going to be replaced by AI.”

Elmasry noted that AI can be used as a tool to aid, but people see that as a total job replacement.

“Some businesses goals are actually to do that to be fair. It is about concern, but AI cannot replace the human touches, it's more some people [think] we're all going to be replaced,” he said.

Elmasry calls AI a tool more than anything else.

“It will free up your time to do more things that you couldn't do before,” he said.

“If I want to write an email based on policies, on research, and I just want to narrow down results, it's a tool to save me time and give me time to progress further.”

He said for career progression, AI can help users.

“Even for career progression, to do the task that saves me time, helped me doing research, rather than a tool to replace. We're not there yet, and I don't think the replacement thing will ever happen,” he said.

Elmasry likens the growth in AI popularity to when automation first appeared within the tech sector.

"When automation first came out, you can automate, and especially in the IT industries. Lots of people thought when automation came out that once you're automating, you don't need the technical guy anywhere, because just all automated,” he explained.

“But it's not the case. You still need someone to look after the technology, for example. Embrace the change, rather than just resist it.”