[MTE] [Mar 2026] [P1] Smarter Crisis Decisions with AI

Part 1: Smarter Crisis Decisions with AI: Why BCM Needs a New Support Tool

Introduction

Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the most practical enablers of modern business continuity management (BCM).

In her presentation,  Sirilah Raman, Head of Business Continuity Management (VP) of Bank Simpanan Nasional, made it clear that AI should not be viewed as a replacement for crisis managers, incident commanders, or leadership teams.

Instead, AI should be treated as a support tool that helps organisations process information faster, identify patterns earlier, and respond more quickly and with greater confidence during disruptions.

In a crisis, decision-makers are often overwhelmed by fragmented updates, urgent requests, conflicting signals, and time pressure.

AI helps reduce this burden by organising data, highlighting anomalies, and presenting insights in a more usable format, enabling humans to make better-informed decisions.

This is Part 1 of the two-part summary of Sirilah's presentation during BCM Institute's Meet-the-Expert webinar.  The webinar is summarised by Dr Goh Moh Heng, President of the BCM Institute.

A key point from the session was that AI can add value across the full BCM lifecycle, not only during a live incident.

Before a crisis, AI can improve business impact analysis (BIA), risk assessment, interdependency mapping, and document review.

Sirilah shared how organisations can start with tools they already have, such as Power Query, Power Automate, and dashboarding tools, rather than investing immediately in expensive new platforms.

For example, a bank or insurer collecting BIA data from dozens of departments can use automation to consolidate templates and then use AI to clean up inconsistent inputs, detect hidden dependencies, and generate more professional analysis. This turns what is usually a slow, manual, and error-prone exercise into something faster and more insightful.

The presentation also highlighted that today’s risk environment is far more dynamic than it was even five years ago. Traditional BCM plans were often written to respond after an event occurred, but operational resilience now demands a more proactive approach.

AI helps organisations move from reactive recovery to pre-emptive monitoring. It can analyse existing BCM plans, identify gaps in preventive controls, and suggest where plans should be modernised to reflect newer threats such as cyber incidents, system outages, and third-party failures.

This is particularly relevant for regulated sectors such as banking and insurance, where risk assessments increasingly require evidence-based analysis rather than broad assumptions.

Another strong message from the session was that human judgment remains central. AI can process at speed, at scale, and with consistency, but humans bring ethics, context, empathy, and accountability.

In crisis management, those human qualities cannot be outsourced. Sirilah stressed that decisions affecting customers, regulators, reputation, and recovery priorities must still be made by authorised people. AI helps people think faster; it does not take over responsibility.

This distinction is important, especially as organisations begin experimenting with generative AI and decision-support tools in high-pressure environments.

The presentation concluded with a realistic yet optimistic view: AI will not replace crisis managers, but it will elevate crisis management.

BCM practitioners who learn to combine automation, AI analysis, and human leadership will be better positioned to improve both the efficiency of routine BCM work and the effectiveness of crisis response.

The takeaway is not to wait for a perfect solution. Start small, use existing tools, improve documentation, speed up analysis, and build confidence step by step.

Dr Goh Moh Heng, President of BCM Institute, summarises this webinar. If you have any questions, please speak to the author.