You know about guardrails on the highway: barriers along the edge of the road that protect vehicles from veering off course and into danger. With the advent of generative AI (gen AI), the concept of guardrails also applies to systems designed to ensure that a company's AI tools, especially large language models (LLMs), work in alignment with organizational standards, policies, and values. Lareina Yee is a senior partner in McKinsey's Bay Area office, where Roger Roberts is a partner; Mara Pometti is a consultant in the London office; and Stephen Xu is a senior director of product management in the Toronto office. While gen AI can improve a company's efficiency, innovation, and competitive advantage, it can also introduce challenges and risks. As companies' adoption of gen AI increases rapidly, guardrails are crucial to the responsible use of AI. Guardrails can identify and remove inaccurate content that's generated by LLMs, as well as monitor and filter out risky prompts. Such risky...
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