MY businesses show readiness to adopt Gen AI but nation lacks preventive laws

CyberSecurity Malaysia (CSM) has reportedly said that Malaysian organisations are ready to adopt generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) for their business and operations, but more preventive laws are needed.

The current state of readiness is also in line with the Malaysia Digital initiative which aims to catalyse the nation’s digital economy, said Mohd Zabri Adil Talib, head of division, CSM cybersecurity responsive services as reported by Bernama.

Don't miss: Why half of Malaysian CEOs have yet to adopt gen AI in their work

As Malaysia has launched the AI roadmap and have been in the process of drafting more than 50% of the AI regulation, he added that the nation lags behind in terms of providing preventive laws to regulate cybersecurity to avoid threats using AI. He added that the nation needs to have "a preventive law that requires critical national information infrastructure organisations to conduct a security audit and assessment of the advantages or vulnerabilities of their systems at least annually."

He further explained that these checks must be mandatory for all agencies at risk to gauge the maturity level of cybersecurity in the organisation. These laws will also include the vendors who deal with the respective agencies.

As a cybersecurity defender or enforcement agency, we must be competent enough against threats that adopt the use of generative AI. This will help us make more informed decisions to combat the threats, he added.

Gen AI has truly shaken up how marketing is done with organisations already investing in Gen AI for marketing and dedicating a whopping 62% of their total marketing technology budget towards it.

Meanwhile, on the corporate side, half of Malaysian CEOs admitting to not having adopted Gen AI across their companies in the past 12 months, according to PwC’s 27th Annual Global CEO Survey (Malaysia). The study also found that almost half (43%) of Malaysia-based CEOs do not believe their organisations will be economically viable in a decade if they continue on their current path.

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