Embrace the AI disruptor

There’s no question that AI is changing the way companies do business. In order to take a closer look at the AI phenomenon—and how organizations are responding—Conga recently surveyed 1,500 European decision makers in legal operations and revenue operations regarding the EU AI Act, which begins enforcement next year.  

A panel of business leaders and Conga experts gathered onstage at Conga Connection EMEA to discuss the results of this study. Following are some highlights from that timely conversation.   

How prepared are European companies?  

When asked whether their businesses are prepared to comply with the requirements of the EU AI Act, survey respondents were relatively confident. In fact, 80% said they were either very prepared or somewhat prepared. In general, larger organizations reported greater confidence than smaller organizations. Preparedness also varied between countries (UK 89%, Germany 82%, France 68%).  

Panelist Kerry Holleran, Director of Contracting Operations at Deloitte, shared her experience with preparation and implementation of the AI Act. “Pretty quickly after seeing drafts of the Act, we realized we needed to tackle this project in ‘buckets’ of work,” she said. Those buckets included:

• Creating a policy on AI. The company didn’t have an existing policy on responsible AI use, so creating one was foundational to the rest of their compliance efforts.  
• Classifying all AI usage. The Act requires businesses to classify all their AI according to its category of risk. So, the first step in this process was to build a repository of all AI being used in the company. From there, they were able to classify every use case to ensure they weren’t using any “banned AI.”
• Training. The Act lays out specific requirements for training, so the company created some of that training in-house and outsourced the rest.  
• Technical documentation. Fortunately, the organization had teams that were well equipped to meet the Act’s documentation requirements.    

Top concerns with the EU AI Act vary widely  

The survey asked business leaders to share their concerns related to EU AI Act compliance. Among the wide variety of issues respondents shared, three top concerns emerged:

• High cost of implementation (39%)  
• Lack of clarity (36%)  
• Hidden AI exposure (30%) 

Clearly, business leaders are worried about the expense related to compliance—and in a related question, 40% said they had little or no budget allocated for AI Act compliance. Leaders are also uncertain about what the Act means for their business. And as we explored earlier, it’s difficult to know all the places where AI is being used within an organization.  

On the question of cost, Kerry Holleran noted that her company added an entire legal team dedicated to AI and digital compliance—not to mention steering committees spanning upwards of 500 people at various levels of leadership.  

Panelist Nils Heblich-Menke, Chief Product Owner at Bosch, also shared his experience. Working for a German company, the approach tends to be more conservative—so being compliant with regulations and ethical standards is almost built into their DNA. Rather than treating compliance as a hurdle, they treat it as a framework for innovation. However, cost is definitely a concern for organizations operating in a global market, because other regions aren’t subject to the same requirements and limitations. 

How are organizations thinking about AI?

When it comes to its impact on a business, there are many ways to think about AI. Some organizations view AI as simply a digital assistant for employees, while others see it as a way to reduce headcount. Conga’s VP of Solutions Marketing & Strategy, Geoff Webb, shared some insights on this topic based on his conversations with Conga customers.  

Many organizations today are using AI to save time and do everyday tasks more quickly. But taking things a step further, there’s a lot of interest in eliminating those day-to-day tasks altogether and using AI for real transformation. The maturity isn’t there yet for most companies, but there’s a building desire to find those groundbreaking applications. 

He also mentioned a recent US-based study showing that, while 13% of businesses have reduced headcount as a result of AI, 17% have actually increased headcount. That investment shows the need to bring in people with new skills sets to fully activate new AI capabilities. 

How are businesses using AI today?  

Conga’s survey asked how companies are using AI today, from the perspective of both revenue operations and legal operations. The top five responses for each group were as follows:

Revenue operations:  

• Sales performance analytics (34%)
• Financial reporting & compliance (32%)
• Revenue forecasting & predictive analysis (31%)
• Billing & invoicing processes (31%)
• Revenue recognition automation (30%)

Legal operations:  

• Contract review & analysis (32%)
• Compliance monitoring & alerts (30%)
• Contract drafting & template generation (29%)
• Contract performance tracking (28%)
• Renewal & expiration management (27%) 

Panelist Kerry Holleran shared insights on internal AI use at Deloitte, specifically in legal operations. The legal teams and legal operations teams currently have access to some homegrown AI tools, but otherwise they aren’t using much AI functionality. However, that’s about to change. She said that Deloitte lawyers and contract managers from around the world are holding workshops to discuss their AI needs and the AI-related projects that need to happen. Progress is slow when you have 15 separate business entities in different regions trying to make decisions, but momentum is building.