IIT-Madras conclave to focus on AI governance, accountability

CHENNAI: As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become increasingly embedded in industry and public life, IIT-Madras will host a conclave on Thursday to examine how their performance, safety and accountability can be measured to support responsible deployment.

The Industry Conclave on AI Governance 2026, organised by the Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI) at the Wadhwani School of Data Science and AI (WSAI), will focus on ‘AI Measurement and Governance’, bringing together researchers, industry representatives and policy experts.

“Governance that isn’t grounded in measurement remains a statement of intent, not a practice,” said Prof Balaraman Ravindran, head of WSAI and CeRAI, emphasising the need for rigorous evaluation to ensure AI systems are fair, safe and robust.

The conclave will feature keynote addresses by Prof Gopal Ramchurn, University of Southampton professor and CEO of Responsible AI UK, and Prof Mohan Kankanahalli, Provost’s Chair Professor of Computer Science and director of the NUS AI Institute at the National University of Singapore.

Prof Ramchurn said, “The spread of agentic AI raises urgent questions about accountability for autonomous systems, tracing their actions and mitigating risks.” Prof Kankanahalli cautioned that rapid advances in AI capabilities could render benchmarks obsolete, complicating reliable evaluation.

A fireside chat between Ravindran and Rahul Matthan, partner at Trilegal, will explore AI measurement and governance. A panel on AI and consumer rights will feature representatives from Citizen Consumer and Civic Action Group, Razorpay, the National University of Juridical Sciences and Google India.

The programme will also showcase startups working on AI evaluation, observability, compliance and governance, alongside CeRAI research, open-source tools and hands-on workshops on responsible AI frameworks. A new research initiative will be launched and a paper announced at the conclave.