Roundtable 3: Where should the human sit?

AI is moving from answering questions and generating content towards systems capable of initiating, coordinating and executing sequences of work.

That changes the leadership question.

It is no longer simply “Can AI do this?”

Increasingly, leaders need to ask: “Should AI be allowed to do this — and where does human judgement need to remain involved?”

As greater autonomy becomes technically possible, professional services firms will need to establish clear boundaries around decision-making, approval, oversight and intervention. Those choices become particularly important where work affects clients, finances, legal or regulatory obligations, reputation and professional accountability.

Chaired by Richard Chaplin, this will be a candid peer discussion among CEOs and Managing Partners examining questions including:

• – Which decisions and activities can safely be delegated to AI?
• – Which must always involve human judgement or approval?
• – Where should human oversight sit in client-facing, financial, legal, compliance or reputationally sensitive processes?
• – What needs to be monitored in real time as AI systems become more autonomous?
• – What evidence and audit trail should exist where an AI agent makes or supports a decision?
• – How should accountability be defined between partners, teams, technology providers and AI systems?
• – What new skills will leaders and managers need when they are supervising both people and AI agents?

This is not simply a question of technology governance. It goes to the heart of professional judgement, responsibility and client trust.

For professional services leaders, the challenge is to capture the benefits of greater automation without losing sight of what clients ultimately entrust to a firm and its people.

This final roundtable brings the sequence directly into our March conference. Having explored what to automate, how to govern its value, and where human control should remain, we will widen the discussion to the future of professional services leadership itself: how leaders design firms in which people, process, data and AI work together while preserving the judgement, accountability and trust on which professional services depend.

We hope you will join Richard and fellow firm leaders for this discussion — and for the wider conversation as it continues into March.