My editor at Quality wanted a short piece on risk management aimed at quality professionals. Frankly, I don’t know what to say about risk management that most quality folks don’t already know.  

So, I decided to focus on what we think are opportunities for the quality profession specifically focusing on how to ‘show you the money.’ There’s some old information. There’s some new information that hopefully helps you prosper.   

Trust: The Big Question in AI Decision Making 

AI is disrupting all professional work and creating opportunities for the quality profession. New opportunities are being created around AI trust, risk assurance, and risk based decision making. Quality professionals are perfectly placed to monetize these opportunities.  

More decision making is done by AI machines. This is called autonomous decision making. Like any new technology, there are opportunity risks and consequence risks. Let’s look at medicine, specifically healthcare decision making. AI decision making is often very personal. The AI machine is more accurate and reliable than the human physician in diagnosing certain medical conditions. And, AI or machine medical decisions are often more empathetic than physicians. Go figure. Think about this for a second. The machine understands you and is more ‘human’ than the physician.  

Only 32% of Americans trust AI decision making. So, this begs the question what’s the role of a human physician in the near future? We may have the machine making the preliminary diagnosis of a patient. And then a human physician provides assurance or a second opinion that the machine made a fair and accurate diagnosis. Now, think about the roles a quality professional can assume as a human arbiter in the middle of machine and human decision-making loop. 

Quality Profession Opportunities 

So, ‘show me the money.’ We see four big opportunities for quality professionals:  

1. AI literacy.  
2. AI assurance. 
3. Mandatory risk management system. 
4. Mandatory quality management system. 

Let’s look at each of these and discuss opportunities for quality professionals: 

AI Literacy 

LinkedIn says that AI Literacy is the number-one skill professionals need today. Why? Basic work skills used to be reading, writing, and arithmetic. Well, today many of us listen, dictate and calculate using ChatGPT. The machine does these things better than we can. So, all of us need AI literacy to do today’s work.  

AI literacy is a thing. President Trump signed an executive order requiring AI Literacy in April. The EU mandated AI literacy in February. And I bet you didn’t know that March 28 was AI Literacy Day. 

What does this mean for you? AI knows a lot, or some say, everything. Your value add is not going to be reciting formulae or figuring out how to FMEA something. AI can always do it better than you.  

Nvidia's CEO said, “You won’t lose your job to AI—you’ll lose your job to somebody who uses AI.” A human using AI is more effective than one not using the technology. Your value add is going to be the quality of your decision making. For a quality professional to continue to be employable, you need to be AI literate.  

The person who can define AI literacy in the quality profession is going to be the next Deming. AI opportunities for quality professionals include: 

• AI literacy instructor: Explain how to integrate AI systems into critical business processes and workflows. 
• Architect: Design and deliver training on AI risks and controls. 

AI Assurance 

Most quality professionals are experts in quality assurance, compliance, and risk management. The new opportunity for quality professionals is AI risk assurance. ChatGPT defines AI assurance as: 

“AI assurance refers to the systematic process of evaluating, verifying, and communicating the trustworthiness and reliability of artificial intelligence (AI) systems. It encompasses a range of practices aimed at ensuring that AI technologies operate as intended, are ethically sound, and comply with relevant regulations.”  

This is a mouthful. So, we say that AI assurance explains and validates the rules of engagement between humans and machines. In a few years, most decision making will be made by machines. A few examples illustrate this. Let’s say you’re applying for an apartment, credit card, or auto loan. Or, you’re requesting Medicare pay for an expensive procedure. In each of these, your credit worthiness and past history will be checked and validated by a machine. Each of these is personal. These decisions will be made by a machine that has to be explainable, fair, and transparent. You’re rejected for the apartment or auto loan. There are other providers. But what about that critical procedure? You ask: ‘Why was I rejected?’  

Humans fear AI decision making. AI decision making is black box decision making. Humans do not understand what the inputs are. Humans do not understand the process of how it makes decisions. You want recourse, escalation, or something? You want a fair, transparent, and equitable decision? Who you gonna call? Maybe, quality arbiters.  

In the AI world, this is called human in the loop. The AI assurance professional is the go-between for the machine and the human. Think ombudsperson. This quality professional interprets AI decisions to ensure fairness and assure explainability to the human. This is going to be a mega opportunity as more decision making is done by AI machines. 

What can quality professionals do? Let’s say the AI system makes a wonky decision, then a human could intervene before the result is accepted or implemented. If there are a series of agents or autonomous decision-making AI systems, the human could be a gateway from one agentic system to another to ensure fairness. The human could monitor, intervene, correct, and escalate a perceived bad machine decision. 

AI opportunities for quality professionals include: 

• Decision arbiter: AI decision facilitator is a neutral quality professional who reviews and arbitrates machine decision making.  
• AI inspector: Human who determines compliance with AI regulations or standards. 

Mandatory Risk Management System 

The EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act Article 9 requires that a risk management system is established, implemented, documented, and maintained for high risk AI systems.  

This opportunity to develop a risk management system is a little strange. Why? When you think of a management system you think of quality management systems such as ISO 9001 or an environmental management system such as ISO 14001. There is really no such thing as a risk management system. Yet! 

ISO 31000 is the international standard for risk management. However, it is NOT a certification standard. The EU AI Act requires risk management systems for high risk AI systems. Big problem when no such thing exists.  

The opportunity for quality professionals is to anticipate this market. The EU has mandated a risk management system for compliance to its AI Act. And in this uncertain world almost every company is trying to figure out how to manage the risks of AI, climate change, and just about everything else. 

AI opportunities for quality professionals include: 

• AI risk control design: Architect, design, and deploy risk controls for AI systems. 
• Public Advocate: Human in the loop represents the interests of the public, especially in AI governance. 

Mandatory Quality Management System  

The EU AI Act Article 17 requires providers of high-risk AI systems to have a quality management system. This is a huge opportunity for quality professionals because most are already experts in management systems. 

Now, what is a high-risk AI system? The EU AI Act identifies high risk AI systems as posing significant risks to health, safety and fundamental rights. Just think of all the systems that you live with that have safety components of products. These include medical devices, vehicles, planes and many ordinary products. Or, a safety component can be part of a larger product that involves high risk use. 

AI opportunities for quality professionals include: 

• AI risk auditor: Audit AI management systems such as ISO 42001. 
• AI risk architect: Design AI system controls for ISO management systems. 

Your Futures 

The quality profession is being disrupted. Some wonder if it continues to exist. Yes, but not in its current state. AI, the disruptor, will destroy traditional quality control and assurance jobs. But it will create new opportunities and jobs. We want you to thrive and prosper. Or in other words, ‘show me the money!’