Artificial intelligence and its associated risks are changing all the time, and it’s hard to prepare when no one is sure what’s around the corner. But boards can prepare for impact reduction, Business as Usual managing director Rinske Geerlings told Australian Ageing Agenda. She was speaking with AAA ahead of her appearance at Better Boards Conference 2026, where she will join the Digital Governance Enabling Courageous Innovation, Transformation and Capability panel on day one of the two-day event. Rinske Geerlings (supplied) Ms Geerlings has a background in enterprise risk management and has spent the last two decades helping businesses balance opportunities and threats when introducing change. Of course, organisations want to prevent risk, Ms Geerlings told AAA, but prevention also means missing out on some benefits that taking risks can bring, such as improving the efficiency of administration-related tasks. Because if not-for-profits and corporates can benefit from AI, so too can hackers, she said. “And the attacks on smaller organisations are far more prevalent these days because they’re just less protected and they don’t have the big budgets. Especially the not-for-profits don’t have the funds to hire cyber specialists and people like that who can really protect them in a customised way. They might have some general tools and things like security software,” she told AAA. “But they often don’t have the budget for that actual expertise.” Risks are unknown but preparation still essential Despite the specific type of risk AI could bring to an organisation being largely unknown and unpredictable, it is still possible to reduce the likelihood and plan for impact reduction, Ms Geerlings said. Impact reduction can include cyber incident response plans, business continuity procedures and crisis communication protocols. It is essentially an organisation’s plan of how it will “go back to pen and paper” if systems go down, Ms Geerlings told AAA. “Not-for-profits have lost that flair because they used to have those tools in place. When their own in-house IT guy was managing IT, they thought, ‘Oh, I better have a backup process because the guy can have a day off or can make a mistake,’” she said. “Now with the cloud, everybody puts everything in one basket. They think ‘Oh, the cloud will never go down and AI will always be up and everything will work.’ But if it doesn’t work, how can you go back to basic manual work-arounds?” This is among Ms Geerlings’ key areas of focus when helping boards plan for operational risks. She encourages them to build a concise and consistent internal and external message for crisis communications. “Then start looking at how you pick up the pieces, but have at least the communications organised properly,” she said. (iStock.com/skynesher) Another aspect boards need to consider when introducing AI is ethics, Ms Geerlings said. AI means looking at systems now making decisions. While AI has facts, it doesn’t know the truth. It can make very strange mistakes, have biases, and lean towards what the world is mostly saying, she said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s applicable to your organisation and it’s certainly not always innovative. So it does have problems and it can disadvantage certain groups because if judgment is given by an AI tool on what’s mostly the opinion out there of the population in the world, it doesn’t mean that it’s actually right.” Ms Geerlings said she would delve further into all of these ideas during the conference panel discussion. She will be joined by: IT strategic consultant Tammy Ven Dange Hoshizora Foundation chair Wenda Gumulya Greg Porter Advisory director Greg Porter. Ensemble Strategy co-founder and director, and conference emcee Felicity Green will facilitate the conversation. The Better Boards Conference 2026 takes place at the Cairns Convention Centre on 31 July and 1 August. Australian Ageing Agenda is a media partner for the event. Read more technology articles hereDo you have a technology story to share? Send details and images to editorial@australianageingagenda.com.au Share this: Share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook Share on X (Opens in new window) X Share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn