(US & Canada) VIDEO | All Organizations Will Need AI Policies Going Forward — Bread Financial Head of Data Management, Protection, and Governance

Sanjay Saxena, Head of Data Management, Protection, and Governance at Bread Financial, speaks with Laurissa Krishock, Strategic Account Executive at OneTrust, in a video interview about bringing siloed teams together, the organizational approach to AI and ML, and building the right data foundation for AI programs.

Speaking about bringing teams together, Saxena states that the organizational roles around privacy and InfoSec have traditionally been siloed but both external and internal stakeholders want consistent solutions across the board. He adds that each silo has its own policies, standards, and frameworks to solve different aspects of the problems.

Therefore, the idea is to build a common strategy across some areas, to bring groups together in a common forum to solve problems holistically across the board. Taking the instance of PII data, Saxena notes that the organization must have access controls on the PII data, know where it exists, and catalog it efficiently.

Further, it must be ensured that appropriate policies from a privacy perspective are attached to data elements, says Saxena. This comprehensive approach allows the organization to understand all the aspects and put in the right processes and controls across disciplines through collaboration.

When it comes to approaching machine learning and AI tools, Bread Financial does it extensively across different business aspects, says Saxena. He mentions that the first pivotal area to consider while using AI is being able to explain what is being built.

The second aspect is ensuring accurate information goes into the models, and the data is bias-free.

The third challenge is to make sure there is an entire operational pipeline for deploying these models into production and using them effectively.

Saxena elaborates that these considerations must be brought in while approaching traditional machine learning and AI. This again calls for massive cross-collaboration between governance, analytics, and AI teams, for a good end product.

Highlighting the organizational AI need, Saxena states that while some organizations may still not have an AI policy, going forward, it will be imperative to have one. He adds that many organizations are benefitting from deploying AI models.

Delving further, Saxena maintains that organizations should set up solid data foundations first, and then launch a proper AI program. He recommends starting with internal use cases that improve productivity such as summarizing customer calls.

Additionally, Saxena suggests having a model management or governance team fully engaged in building the right foundation. He notes that AI can be a powerful thing with organizational safeguards.

However, due to the massive amount of data used internally or externally, organizations must figure out ways to share data securely. He says that the concept of clean rooms will become big along with the core concepts of governance and data management and the basic foundation around quality metadata management.

In conclusion, Saxena shares his excitement to play a part in the data role going forward and believes this is the starting point of the role leading in new directions.

CDO Magazine appreciates Sanjay Saxena for sharing his valuable insights with our global community.