Boards Must Defend AI or Face Liability

AI is already driving credit decisions, logistics, and public services across Africa, yet most boards approve AI strategies without visibility into how decisions are made or whether controls work. Stanford's 2025 AI Index flags rising AI-related incidents as global regulators demand organisations explain and evidence their systems' behaviour. The new governance standard is defensible AI, not just responsible AI as a principle. Boards must shift from approving AI initiatives to interrogating them, demanding clear purpose, assigned executive accountability, and structured evidence of how systems are designed, tested, and monitored. Organisations that cannot prove their systems work as intended have no business deploying them.