What Is Responsible AI?

Discover the principles and ethical frameworks of responsible AI — and how Medallia governs its AI technology.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to revolutionize the world of work. Yet, many people are wary about its rising popularity. Concerns about job displacement, privacy breaches, and ethical risks are omnipresent in discussions of AI. But fears about rising automation aren’t new — whether you’re an 1800s textile designer looking at an automated loom or a modern-day backend developer looking at ChatGPT. 

Because we understand the value and risks of AI, we at Medallia have always strived towards creating responsible AI that keeps humans in the loop and improves their daily flow of work.

So, what is responsible AI? Responsible AI is an approach to artificial intelligence that ensures AI-powered features are developed, tested, and maintained with a focus on mitigating bias, discrimination, and privacy violations, while promoting accountability and transparency.

And how should you implement responsible AI? Let’s start with some principles for creating responsible AI that we believe every organization should follow.

The Main Principles of Responsible AI

Transparency

AI systems should be easily understood — meaning that all users can comprehend its processes and outcomes. This includes being extra clear about how data is collected, decisions are made, and models are trained.

Accountability

Organizations — and the teams responsible for AI development — must be accountable for the system’s behavior and outcomes. If AI has the potential to cause harm or other problems, mechanisms should be in place to address the situation so that somebody is always accountable.

Privacy & Security

Privacy and security are essential pillars of responsible AI. Sensitive information should be safeguarded, ensuring AI systems and the companies overseeing them are resilient to breaches and attacks through robust, consistent vulnerability testing.

Ethical Data Usage

To ensure that data is being used and collected ethically, and that AI isn’t trained with bias and discrimination, organizations must implement diverse data collection, develop fair machine learning models, reprocess data to remove bias, monitor and test AI models with human review and oversight, and continuously monitor and audit their AI systems. Businesses should create a set of ethical and legal guidelines that models and data usage are measured against. 

The Importance of AI Governance for Responsible AI

Companies need to oversee a robust AI moderation and security process to solidify truly responsible AI. This must apply to all current and future technology, prohibit law violations, and adhere to other strict rules and regulations.

Your organization should define teams and roles that handle your own AI governance processes to ensure you’re using and building responsible AI, especially as AI comes to the forefront of conversations about privacy and security. Your vendors should, too!

As an example, Medallia’s intake process follows the below guidelines:

1. Documentation: The new AI use case is described, including the features, purpose, and training.
2. Risk Management: Any foreseeable risks are flagged, including potential misuse of the AI system.
3. Compliance: Ethical and legal use of the data and compliance with applicable obligations are ensured.
4. Safety, Moderation, Ethics: Global experts help create robust safeguards, focusing on human-centered AI to mitigate bias further.

AI Governance: How Medallia Addresses Responsible AI

Medallia’s External AI Advisory Board

Our advisory board is a diverse collective that demonstrates thought leadership in AI policies, regulations, and technologies to promote safe, secure, and fair AI solutions. 

The AI Advisory Board is made up of ten customer and partner representatives with backgrounds in every use case we service. Members are well-seasoned experts who provide input on AI privacy, ethics, and security for Medallia and the broader experience management community. The board focuses on diverse representation across markets, with an emphasis on enterprise and small-to-medium enterprises worldwide. 

“It is important for us that the AI Advisory Board includes people from diverse backgrounds,” said Rahul Kamdar, SVP of Product Management at Medallia. “By bringing in different viewpoints and unique contributions, we hope to understand and solve complex problems, avoid biases, and address ethical issues to build AI solutions that truly benefit all.”

Medallia’s Internal AI Moderation Council

The internal AI Moderation Council is a team of diverse professionals across the wide spectrum of AI expertise, from legal to data acquisition. The team handles internal Medallia queries about our governance processes. They keep up to date on new and pressing issues in AI regulation, ethics, and anything else pertinent to building AI that is simultaneously human-centric, responsible, and able to generate value for our clients. 

At Medallia, the Moderation Council is a key part of our AI feature development process, validating models against our responsible AI principles and relevant legal requirements. Together, our experts are able to have a tangible impact on the growth of our AI in a changing world. The AI Moderation Council has a tough job, but it’s one that every organization should seriously consider creating their own internal team to tackle. 

Ensuring Responsible AI in the Modern Age

Responsible AI encompasses principles such as transparency, accountability, privacy, and security, which are vital for ensuring ethical AI development. 

These principles matter. Medallia’s approach to responsible AI includes a robust governance framework that focuses on documentation, risk management, and compliance, as well as a diverse AI Advisory Board that brings varied perspectives to address biases and ethical issues. By adhering to these principles, Medallia ensures all of its AI solutions are safe, secure, and equitable.

Medallia has deeply integrated AI into the core of our platform for over 15 years, starting with the 2008 release of our industry-leading text analytics. Our AI is a key differentiator that enables us to scale and democratize high-quality CX and EX insights across the world’s largest enterprises.

To learn more about Medallia’s approach to AI, check out our AI leadership page.