As part of the build-up to the Week of Integrity 2026, we hosted a webinar that many of us are still thinking about. “Leading with Integrity in the Age of Agentic AI” brought together an audience of compliance, legal, risk and governance professionals for an hour with Susan Du Becker, Director of Risk and Compliance for Microsoft’s Supply Chain Hardware team. The conversation was facilitated by Andrea Cardoso. Susan has spent years working on responsible technology inside one of the companies that helped build AI, and she brought a rare mix of hands-on experience and plain speaking. What follows is a recap of the ideas that stayed with us, and why they matter for the theme of this year’s edition, Leading with Integrity in a Digital Age.

AI power and human wisdom are complementary in generating accurate forecasts and mitigating extreme errors... Machine-learned patterns are useful only if they can be rationalized by economic intuition, something that is arrived at by human judgment.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly reshaping human resource management (HRM), yet existing research remains fragmented in explaining how AI-enabled HRM may contribute to sustainable HRM outcomes. Prior studies have generally examined AI either as a tool for efficiency, automation, and data-driven decision-making or as a source of ethical and employee-related risks. Less attention has been given to the conditions under which AI-enabled HRM creates sustainable value, the organisational mechanisms through which this value emerges, and the risks that may limit such outcomes. To address this gap, this conceptual paper develops an AI-enabled sustainable HRM framework grounded in the Resource-Based View and Socio-Technical Systems theory.

"Safety by design remains essential as it emphasizes preventive and anticipatory action rather than reacting after harm occurs. But it must be paired with foresight to prepare for a shifting digital world where harms evolve, rules change, technologies converge and bad actors adapt. The organizations that lead on digital safety will not only ask how to build safer systems; they will ask what future those systems must be ready for."

By the end of UNESCO's AI Literacy Training for Civil Servants, many participants offer a similar reflection: the program covered far more than they expected, introduced issues they had never previously considered, and revealed the complexity of questions surrounding AI governance. Rather than feeling that they have completed their learning journey, they often leave with a greater appreciation of how much there is still to learn.

AI’s impact goes beyond the quantity of jobs- it’s also about how technology is affecting wages, conditions and new opportunities. Sher Verick answers questions about some overlooked dimensions and what it will take to ensure AI benefits all enterprises and workers.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the rules of leadership. It can process vast amounts of information, detect patterns invisible to the human eye, and streamline operations — but it can't replace judgment or trust. Executives today face a dual challenge: leveraging AI’s capabilities while maintaining the human-centered leadership that drives culture and accountability.  Explore how leaders can navigate AI adoption responsibly and develop the skills needed for strategic decision-making in an AI-enabled world.

Ethics & Compliance (E&C) officers can greatly benefit from the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their functions: AI enhances compliance effectiveness by identifying and predicting E&C risks faster, reducing the administrative burden on compliance staff through task automation, and enabling targeted training programs. Yet without careful ethical assessment, AI simultaneously introduces risks that threaten the ethical principles of autonomy, fairness, transparency, well-being and security. A practical five-pillar checklist helps E&C leaders to ethically assess the AI systems they employ in their functions.

Most organisations did not begin their AI journey with a board decision. They began with a colleague summarising a document, a manager testing a chatbot before a meeting, a legal team exploring a first draft, or a marketing professional generating ideas for a campaign. In many cases, AI entered the organisation quietly, not through a formal transformation programme, but through individual curiosity and the pressure to work faster. That is understandable. Innovation often starts with people trying to improve their work. But it also creates a leadership challenge. In many organisations, actual AI use is moving faster than policy, governance and collective understanding. This is where integrity becomes essential.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is penetrating the domain of public administration with unprecedented depth and breadth, acting as both a powerful tool for enhancing government efficiency and a profound challenge to traditional democratic values and governance structures. To comprehensively understand its application roles, core challenges, and future governance pathways, this paper conducts a systematic literature review to construct and provide robust empirical support and systematic theoretical elucidation for a “tool-paradigm dual revolution” analytical framework.

The potential negative impacts of data center expansion on carbon emissions, water usage, and electricity bills are relatively well documented. But their potential PFAS pollution, both direct and indirect, is less well known. PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, are very durable and accumulate—in both the environment and the body—over time, posing real concerns for long-term human and ecological health.  Data centers host tens of thousands of servers that run 24/7 in order to keep virtual networks, cloud storage, and computing in operation. Such servers require semiconductors, cooling systems, and fire suppressants—all sources of PFAS forever chemicals. Many emerging technologies hold promise in terms of destroying PFAS, but they are energy intensive and expensive. This brings up the ongoing debate over who should bear the cost of potential solutions.

Cases of "AI psychosis" include people who become fixated on AI as godlike, or as a romantic partner. Chatbots' tendency to mirror users and continue conversations may reinforce and amplify delusions. General-purpose AI chatbots are not trained for therapeutic treatment or to detect psychiatric decompensation.

Advanced AI and synthetic media are driving a systemic global crisis that risks destabilizing modern democracies. Opportunistic actors are using psychological profiling and emotional triggers to manipulate public perception and fuel polarization. Building societal resilience against this requires investing in robust verification systems alongside proactive education and regulatory frameworks.

Trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI) is a global priority, as societies shift from broad ethical principles to the more challenging work of putting them into practice. Universities are emerging as key actors of responsible AI, embedding fairness, privacy and accountability through ethics-by-design methods and interdisciplinary governance. Collaboration and education in academia are shaping sustainable AI for the future, advancing innovation while safeguarding the social values that underpin stable economies and societies.