AI Puts General Counsel at the Center of Corporate Survival

Business survival, in 2026, will be a high-wire act where market value and trust vanish in minutes. A single deepfake attack

against a chief financial officer (CFO) — engineered into a jaw-dropping manufactured “gotcha“ — or a rogue, unauthorized AI-driven digital attack can torch reputation before a chief executive officer (CEO) can shout, “Battle stations!”

Corporate survival demands relentless adaptability, warp-speed agility and precision. Speed is vital but useless if wrong. Winning combines constant preparation, scenario rehearsals and disciplined action.

A late-night social media storm can send stocks into a nosedive by the opening bell. Market tremors now propagate in minutes, trades triggered in microseconds — often set off by viral content or a single, surgical, 280-character post.

Unfortunately, most lawyers approach warp speed with the enthusiasm of a Victorian confronting an escalator. In this environment, hesitation is not a flaw; it’s an existential liability.

Business today resembles speed chess, except pieces move themselves, rules shift mid-game locally and globally, with compliance laws clashing across borders.

Today’s reality is that artificial intelligence (AI) generated deepfakes have already cloned executives’ voices, duping employees into transferring funds or leaking sensitive data.

Algorithms now act in real time with real-world consequences, while cyber threats outpace the laws meant to contain them. The 2025 crisis playbook is obsolete. Companies that fail to evolve don’t just risk penalties — they gamble reputation, trust, equity value and survival.

While researching my forthcoming AI book, we spoke with CEOs and general counsels (GCs) about AI’s legal and reputational risks. The consensus was uneasy urgency, tinged with polite optimism usually reserved for pilots announcing “light turbulence” during a thunderstorm.

A few insisted their companies were “totally on top of it,” but admitted their strategy boiled down to: “We’re letting IT manage it.” This problem now exceeds the scope of IT and law alone.

A friend — a GC for two major companies and a former military fighter pilot — flew one of the most advanced single-seat aircraft in the world equipped with cutting-edge avionics, lethal air-to-air weapons and blistering speed. Physical demands were brutal.

When asked about the hardest part, he didn’t hesitate: ”You always have to be thinking 5 to 10 miles ahead when you are flying. Always.”

That mindset defines great GCs: always ahead of the threat. Deepfakes, cyberattacks and regulatory upheaval are the next turbulence at Mach speed.

When an AI-powered trading algorithm misfires, deepfakes drain accounts or a rogue chatbot tarnishes a brand overnight, executives won’t call IT… those calls will be to legal and communications.

GCs must mobilize cross-functional teams instantly to ensure fairness, transparency and compliance before damage becomes irreversible.

AI now drives strategic decisions through cognitive computing, autonomous systems and adaptive learning.

No organization can afford to deploy a black-box system that produces legally questionable decisions. Instead, it must become a trust engine — protecting stakeholder confidence, upholding contracts and steering clear of the corporate kabuki of hollow lawyer-script. Those “We take this very seriously” statements that land with the credibility of a phishing email.

Reputational threats demand preemptive strategies — ethical AI governance, clear communications and rehearsed rapid-response protocols.

A great general counsel isn’t just a firefighter — they’re the architect of fire prevention. They engineer systems that make crises uncommon, embed legal foresight into business strategy and turn trust from a happy accident into a deliberate competitive asset.

Ethical AI or carbon neutrality — whatever the promise, slogans are cheap; keeping them is costly. GCs ensure they’re worth the investment and survive earnings cycles.

This is never a one-lawyer mission… it’s a precision team sport.

AI specialists stress-test algorithms for bias, contract hawks seal cross-border loopholes, compliance veterans navigate clashing regulations and experienced communications strategists shape stakeholder perception before and as it hits the headlines.

If that roster isn’t on the field, the clock is running out. The GC’s mandate is brutally simple: stop AI from rewriting the company risk profile or its obituary.

Some regulators now move faster than companies they police. Antitrust enforcement is expanding, deepfake lawsuits are surfacing, privacy and cybersecurity rules tightening and corporate liability climbing… all at once and at record speed.

In just two years, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has imposed more than $11 billion in penalties — $1.5 billion tied directly to failures in monitoring off-channel communications such as private messaging apps, social media and unauthorized devices.

European Commission (EC) has hit violators with similarly steep penalties for data breaches.

In Washington, lawmakers are pushing — but have yet to pass — federal privacy legislation to create a single nationwide standard.

These moves mirror global precedents, from the European Union (EU) General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to California’s Consumer Privacy Act and Texas’s new Data Privacy and Security Act.

Lawmakers are chasing technology evolving faster than statutes can be written, leaving companies in a legal gray zone. This is where general counsels prove their worth — turning AI risk into enforceable policy before regulators, courts or activist investors step in.

It’s not for the fainthearted. AI is already making calls once reserved for human judgment — hiring, lending, pricing — at a scale, few grasp. And while others chase the upgrade, savvier GCs ask the harder question: “Should we?”

Companies that survive won’t just deploy the fastest algorithms; they’ll know when to pause, when to override, when to walk away. Aligning AI with mission, values and risk tolerance isn’t risk-avoidance — it’s survival engineering.

That puts GCs in the control tower — shaping governance, enforcing ethical standards and coordinating with IT — with communications and leadership to preempt the unpredictable: snap regulations, algorithmic errors, novel liabilities and deepfake warfare.

The next corporate crisis will start quietly — with a single AI decision buried in a supply chain, loan portfolio or product recall. By the time it’s visible, fallout will be measured in minutes, not hours.

In that moment, the GC’s value won’t be in citing law — it will be coordinating expert teams, buying the company time, protecting credibility and turning a split-second failure into a long-term save.