KPMG risk chief urges boards to tighten AI oversight
Samantha Gloede said boards need stronger AI governance as the technology moves into strategy, operations and core business decisions.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
KPMG International’s global risk leader is urging corporate boards to strengthen oversight of artificial intelligence as the technology spreads through company strategy and operations. Samantha Gloede said weak governance could leave companies exposed to operational failures, reputational harm and lost trust.
Gloede, KPMG International’s global head of risk services and global trusted AI leader, made the case in a Fortune commentary published June 19. She said KPMG and INSEAD have published AI Governance Principles for Boards to give directors a practical framework for supervising AI adoption.
According to Gloede, many board oversight models were not built for the speed and complexity of AI systems. She argued that directors face a harder task because AI systems often produce probabilistic outputs, while board processes were designed around more predictable forms of risk and control.
Five areas for board attention
Gloede said the KPMG-INSEAD principles focus on five priorities as AI moves deeper into strategy, operations and value creation. The first is treating AI as a strategic issue, rather than a peripheral technology or a narrow efficiency tool.
Boards should include AI in discussions about growth, competitiveness, capital allocation, risk management and resilience, Gloede said. She argued that directors should ask what kind of company AI is helping management build, not only where it can reduce costs or speed up work.
The second priority is AI fluency among directors. Gloede said board members do not need to become engineers, but they need enough understanding to challenge assumptions, identify dependencies and see where risk is building.
That requirement is rising, she said, because companies are using third-party tools, models whose workings may be hard to see, fast-changing vendors and systems that can expand cybersecurity exposure. In Gloede’s view, informed AI oversight has become a board responsibility.
Workforce, trust and accountability
Gloede also warned against framing AI governance only around productivity. She said boards should examine how AI changes work, how companies preserve human judgment and how people remain accountable for decisions shaped by automated tools.
According to Gloede, directors who focus only on automation may miss whether their companies are building a workforce able to use AI, question its outputs and take responsibility for results. She linked that issue to the broader question of how organizations redesign work around the technology.
Trust is another major theme in the governance principles, Gloede said. She identified explainability, fairness, accountability and transparency as operating principles that can support more durable innovation.
Gloede argued that companies face pressure to move quickly, while trust can be lost faster than it is earned. If boards treat trust as a communications issue rather than part of operating discipline, she said, AI adoption may fail to produce a lasting advantage.
The final area is board process itself. Gloede said governing AI requires discipline and a willingness to rethink how oversight is implemented, especially when directors have uneven levels of AI literacy and companies face turbulent economic conditions.
Gloede said boards still have time to shape AI adoption before poor practices become embedded in core processes. She said their role is to make responsible acceleration possible by setting priorities, updating risk frameworks, knowing where AI is used in critical processes and checking that management has the talent and controls to challenge AI outputs before they affect decisions.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.