Lack of trust and awareness of the problem

One reason: only 53 percent of organizations have a senior executive responsible for ethical and trustworthy AI systems. At the same time, compared to last year, fewer consumers believe that companies are fully transparent about how personal data is used, at 62 percent instead of 76 percent.

Capgemini's study "AI and the Ethical Conundrum: How organizations can build ethically robust AI systems and gain trust" comes to these and other conclusions. It also highlights that a focus on ethical aspects is crucial to realizing the transformative potential of AI for the environment, the economy and society.

Organizations increasingly see the need for action on ethical AI systems: 45 percent have defined an AI charter in 2020 (up from 5 percent in 2019), and two-thirds (65 percent) of executives are aware that AI systems can potentially lead to discriminatory decisions. Many public and private institutions have implemented additional AI technologies to address the consequences of the corona pandemic.

Accordingly, consumer trust in AI interactions will become all the more important in the future. A total of 22 percent of companies have been confronted by customers in the past three years with the fact that they doubt AI-based decisions or want to understand the decision-making process.

This is a risk to success, as 45 percent of customers share negative experiences with their environment and encourage them not to interact with the companies in question.