Companies are targeting small productivity wins from artificial intelligence, but are not prepared to hand over the reins to the machines to make big decisions they cannot fully explain or justify, leading Australian executives says.

A year after the launch of ChatGPT, businesses dabbling with generative AI say they are comfortable using the technology as a “co-pilot,” to remove drudgery from human work (or cut the number of people required to perform a task), but fear it could also leave them unable to stand scrutiny in a future senate inquiry or lawsuit.