As you may recall, this past week we attended ARMA International’s InfoCon 2024 in Houston. Following is a summary of my key take-aways from the conference.
- AI Was the Hot Topic
It seemed every other session hit the subject of artificial intelligence (AI) in one form or another. It was most interesting to witness during the IG Maturity Index Report session that we spent almost half of the time talking about AI and whether it should be explicitly included in the Information Governance Implementation Model (IGIM). One of the speakers took the position that we should try to be as technology agnostic as possible, but the other speakers felt that it should be specifically carved out somehow in the IGIM.
I am leaning in this direction, as we need to acknowledge the elephant in the room, especially considering that it was by far the hottest topic at InfoCon 2024. This is not to say that there have not been hot trendy topics in the recent past, such as blockchain, but AI seems to transcend into a more permanent fixture in the lives of IG professionals. I say this not just because it has dominated the headlines in the last two years, but because like it or not we have been using AI for decades now especially in the e-discovery space. The difference now is that large language models (LLM’s) are bringing the technology to everyone’s desktop, so we need to be vigilant of how this technology will impact our people and processes.
- Insufficient Resources Are Recurring Themes
The topic of insufficient resources was not a specific session. But, if you overheard anyone in the hallways, you could always discern this ongoing concern. I personally feel that an insufficient resource concern is another way of saying that we are not getting enough respect. We witnessed some of these concerns during our Client Roundtable Breakfast, where folks from very diverse industries gathered to talk about their pain points and common solutions to those issues. We hosted folks from sectors including oil and gas, financial, artificial intelligence, legal, manufacturing, technology, and pharmaceutical to name a few.
One attendee talked about her global records retention schedule baby that she has been carefully curating for the last decade, only to learn recently that senior management is considering the abandonment of the entire policy. If that happens, not only will her job be in jeopardy, but she wonders how this global organization plans to implement retention and disposition without a policy and commensurate schedule. Without skipping a beat, several people in the room echoed similar concerns, while at the same time offering sage advice: partner with a champion for your program. This champion could come from legal, audit, risk management, technology or compliance for instance. Anyone from these disciplines is likely to share her concerns and will likely join forces to save her program.
- IG Is Critical to AI
I am not sure if this theme arose because we were at an IG conference, but certainly most speakers made a compelling case for why records and information governance professionals are so critical to putting guardrails around AI. Kristi Robison made such a compelling argument in her session simply entitled IG Before AI. She reminded us that the principles we have been applying to manage records and information over the years can and should be applied to AI. These include assessments that include an inventory of the technologies, especially whether they are internal or external.
Similarly, during our panel session on Partnering with Legal, I reminded the audience that when it comes to AI legal needs the IG professionals’ help in at least collecting relevant policies and procedures that should be updated to address AI concerns, plus access to contracts with third party vendors that could impact AI usage. Legal needs to review these provisions to either re-negotiate the terms, or to make sure third-party vendors are harmonized with the organization’s policies and procedures regarding application and usage of AI.
CONCLUSION
On the whole, I was glad I attended InfoCon 2024 because I was able to discern the above noted ongoing themes. Even when I attended sessions that were squarely within my wheelhouse, such as Jason Fung’s Regulation of AI session, it was comforting to know that I am not missing some big gap in my on-going research. Attendance also reminded me of the old adage: “misery loves company.” This is not to say that attendees were miserable, but you could certainly sense the excitement of people finally interacting with a live human being after almost two years of working in house slippers from home with only the company of screaming kids, loud basement generators, or barking dogs.
Please know that I am here as a willing ear if you ever feel like you are being brushed aside. During our Roundtable Breakfast one of our clients reminded the group that two hours spent with me over a China retention issue helped open the floodgates for a multi-million dollar initiative. My personal financial take on that was miniscule, but my reward in knowing I was able to help is immeasurable.