Sreekanth Menon | Source | SVP and Global AI Lead at Genpact

“I don’t think we expected the regulations to come so soon,” says Sreekanth Menon, global head of AI at Genpact. “Once generative AI came in, it became a leadership top topic, and all the governments woke up and said we need regulations.” The EU Act is already in place, and there’s US work in progress. “Now companies have to accommodate that when developing AI, and that’s a cost,” he says. But the regulations aren’t a bad thing, he adds. “We need regulations for the AI decisions to be good and fair,” he says.

Part of the slow spending approach is coming from the fact that senior executives are looking at gen AI the wrong way, said Sreekanth Menon, global leader, AI and machine learning at Genpact. The research showed that about half of the executives are framing gen AI solely as a productivity tool. “This is a case of myopic vision,” Menon said. “The infancy of gen AI, combined with a warped conception of its potential, has led to reluctant budgetary spending.”