‘Human-centred element’

Businesses looking to create a governance policy related to artificial intelligence may be further along than they think.

“You probably have a lot of the frameworks that you already need in place,” said Marceli Walczak, director of the City of Winnipeg’s innovation and technology department.

Walczak was one of six IT professionals who spoke Wednesday during a panel discussion about governing artificial intelligence in an age when using AI is a competitive advantage.

Hosted by the Winnipeg office of advisory firm KPMG as part of MbTech Week, the discussion aimed to address the risks organizations must navigate while unlocking AI’s potential.

Walczak told attendees they likely already have policies around data privacy, records management and security when they are purchasing and implementing new software. Make sure whatever AI solution you pick meets the same criteria, he said.

“Don’t bottle the ocean trying to make perfect policies before you start rolling out some AI, because that’s just going to grind you down to a halt.”

Companies need to embed AI policies in their codes of conduct, employee training and procurement processes, added Loretta Kulchycki, a business modernization executive at Canada Life and founding board member at the Manitoba Association of AI Professionals.

Businesses ought to think about how human accountability will be incorporated into their AI processes, Kulchycki said.

Later, panellists explored the social implications people should be concerned about with AI governance. Companies ought to consider potential job impacts, said Wenxi (Vincent) Pu, a management information systems professor at the University of Manitoba.

Pu cited a 2025 study by Stanford University researchers that showed entry-level jobs are declining as a result of the use of AI. When thinking about AI governance, companies can ask if their AI use is influencing their talent pipeline.

“Governing AI definitely would consider the human-centred element,” Pu said.

Businesses need to think about how much they trust AI, Kulchycki added. If they trust it blindly, it can be potentially catastrophic, she said; if they don’t trust it at all, they won’t use it and can’t reap the potential benefits.

Research shows women are adopting generative AI at a slower pace than men, Kulchycki said, which leads to the risk of creating an AI gender gap.

“You want to make sure that you’re not just making it optional,” she said. “If you only make your training and your use of these cool AI tools … optional, you might only get a subset of your organization that’s using them, and you get really suboptimal results overall.”

AI relies on data centres that are highly energy intensive. When asked what companies should think about when considering the environmental impact of AI, Walczak said businesses are going to have to think about how they integrate and measure sustainability targets into their requests for proposals.

“It’s up to us, the consumer, to make sure that we start demanding that this stuff is green,” Walczak said.

The panel discussion was one of more than 50 events scheduled for the third annual MbTech Week, which started on Sunday and runs until Saturday.

Hosted by Tech Manitoba, the purpose of the event is to showcase and celebrate the innovation happening in the keystone province, said CEO Kelly Fournel. It also gives attendees an opportunity to network and learn from one another.

More than 5,000 people are expected to attend MbTech Week events in Winnipeg, Winkler and Morden, Fournel said — up from approximately 3,000 last year. Visitors from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Ontario are among the attendees.

“It’s incredibly energizing to see how Manitobans are now getting excited about the successes of people in their own backyard,” Fournel said, mentioning Tuesday night’s DARE Innovation Awards as an example.

Technology is an enabler in all business sectors, Fournel added, making MbTech Week relevant to people in every industry.

“It’s really … just a way of bringing visibility to local experts, so that Manitoba companies can work with other Manitoba companies and do good things,” she said.

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca