AI Governance in the Digital Age: Recognizing Challenges and Determining Future Directions

Abstract

The surge of organizational documents presenting ethical principles regarding artificial intelligence (AI) usage leads to rising demand for applying these principles through AI governance (AIG). Research on AIG continues to grow fast while staying mostly fragmented. The main purpose of this review is to synthesizes the AIG literature in organizational contexts by identifying its research themes and knowledge gaps as well as putting forward future agendas. The current conceptualization of AIG receives analysis through systematic literature review to establish new research paths for both academic and applied fields. The review adopts established systematic review guidelines through implementation of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) framework.

The review results were in line with the former assumption that AIG is an emerging research topic with a lack of explicit definitions. In addition, review pointed out four topics in the Literature of the AIG: Technology, stakeholders and context, regulation and processes. Unsolved central knowledge gaps that emerged were the lack of understanding how AIGs would be implemented, insufficient attention to AIG context, uncertainty how effective ethical principles and regulation would be, and how AIG process would be operated. The study then presents four future AIG agendas: technical, stakeholder and contextual, regulatory, and process. Professional practitioners need to understand that training combined with stakeholder management skills and senior management commitment within organizational culture remain vital according to this research. The study demonstrates how practitioners must deliver training while working with stakeholders to develop a proper AI governance framework which depends on their organization's culture.