How to Scale Your BC Program with AI

It’s undeniable, artificial intelligence (AI) is a game changer for business continuity (BC) programs. In a recent webinar hosted in partnership with the Aassociation of Continuity Professionals (ACP), Fusion’s Lead Data Scientist Davis DeRodes and Senior Product Marketing Manager Mandy Leavell shared insights on how to leverage AI to transform and scale BC initiatives, as well as best practices for using AI specifically for your Business Continuity Program 

The Need for a Scalable BC Program in 2025 

With widespread investment in AI accelerating across industries, 2025 is poised to be the year when organizations fully harness the potential of AI to drive growth. Business continuity programs, once bogged down by static documents, a lack of confidence in their data, and time-consuming manual processes, can now evolve into agile, data-driven systems that not only react to crises but proactively prevent them. AI is more than a buzzword—it’s a powerful tool that can transform every stage of the BC lifecycle. 

How AI is Revolutionizing Business Continuity 

Improving Data Quality and Accessibility 

One of the biggest challenges in BC programs is incomplete, siloed, or outdated data. Often, organizations rely on static, outdated plans stored in binders or isolated systems. AI can change this by: 

• Automating Document Conversion: Transforming static BC plans into dynamic, structured data within your system and drawing connections, and understanding context to identify dependencies and other crucial information in a matter of minutes, not hours.
• Data Validation and Enhancement: AI tools can assess the quality of your data, identify gaps, and suggest improvements. This ensures that your BC plans are built on a robust, reliable foundation. 

Automating Manual Processes 

Manual tasks not only consume valuable time but also increase the risk of human error. AI offers multiple ways to automate these processes: 

• Summarization and Reporting: AI can quickly extract key information from lengthy documents, creating concise reports that executives can review at a glance. 
• Scenario Tabletop Creation: Instead of manually gathering data for tabletop exercises, AI can generate realistic scenarios, allowing your team to focus on strategy rather than logistics. 
• Real-Time Incident Management: In a crisis, AI can alert stakeholders, trigger pre-defined response protocols, and even automate follow-up communications. This rapid response capability is critical when every second counts. 

Empowering Proactive Decision-Making 

By automating routine tasks, AI frees up valuable time for BC practitioners to shift from a reactive to a proactive mindset. Instead of spending days managing administrative tasks, teams can now focus on: 

• Strategic Program Improvement: Analyzing data trends to predict future risks and opportunities. 
• Continuous Process Optimization: Receiving ongoing, data-driven recommendations for enhancing BC plans. 

AI Use Cases in Business Continuity 

The webinar provided several practical examples of how AI can be integrated into BC programs: 

• Static Document Conversion: Many organizations still rely on static, outdated plans stored in binders or PDFs. AI can digitize and structure these documents, making them searchable, actionable, and always up to date. This allows BC teams to focus on strategy rather than constantly updating static files. 
• Summaries and Reports: Long documents can be difficult to parse, especially in high-stakes situations. AI extracts the most relevant insights from BC plans, incident reports, and risk assessments, providing decision-makers with concise and clear summaries. This accelerates response times and ensures leadership has the information they need at a glance. 
• Translations: Many organizations operate across multiple regions, requiring BC documentation to be available in multiple languages. AI-powered translations ensure that all teams have access to accurate, localized continuity plans without manual translation efforts. 
• Incident Management: AI agents can enhance incident response by monitoring ongoing disruptions, triggering pre-defined response protocols, and even automating stakeholder notifications. AI ensures that every second counts by streamlining communication and helping teams focus on mitigating risks instead of managing manual processes. 
• Scenario Testing & Simulations: Traditional scenario testing can be expensive and time-consuming. AI can generate realistic crisis scenarios, allowing teams to run stress tests more frequently and improve response strategies based on data-driven insights. 

Agents: The Future of AI 

Agents are AI functionality that take automation to the next level: this groundbreaking technology allows the AI to act on behalf of the user to create new items, kick off processes, and complete tasks. 

• Guided completion of important activities: Agents can streamline lengthy processes such as BIA completion. 
• Proactive Risk Management: AI agents don’t just respond to crises—they predict potential threats and suggest preventive measures. By continuously analyzing risk factors, AI agents help organizations stay ahead of disruptions. 
• Automated Response Execution: Instead of relying on human intervention for every step, AI agents can autonomously execute predefined workflows, alerting relevant teams, initiating crisis protocols, and tracking resolution progress. 
• Enhanced Decision Support: AI agents act as advisors, providing real-time insights, regulatory compliance checks, and tailored recommendations based on an organization’s specific needs.

How AI Can Scale Your BC Program

AI can not only help with manual processes, it can also be a catalyst that scales with you to allow you to grow and improve your program: 

• Document Ingestion: AI centralizes BC plans into a dynamic, actionable, and up-to-date data, ensuring all relevant documents are easily accessible and up to date. 
• Data Enhancement: AI analyzes dependencies, identifies inconsistencies, and improves data quality, making continuity plans more reliable and effective.
• Plan Assessment: AI evaluates existing BC plans, highlighting weaknesses and providing data-driven recommendations for improvement. 
• Plan Updating & Automation: AI dynamically updates BC plans based on real-time risks and organizational changes, ensuring they remain current and actionable. 
• Advanced Use Cases: AI-powered agents and simulations help stress-test BC strategies, improving resilience by providing organizations with data-backed insights for proactive decision-making. 

Best Practices for Integrating AI into Your BC Program 

Empower Your AI with Context 

For AI to be truly effective, it must be provided with high-quality, contextual data: 

• Coaching Your AI: AI thrives on specificity; make sure that you are detailed in your queries, including the format, length, and specifications of any response you expect. Additionally, ensure that your AI systems are trained on industry-specific data and best practices. 
• Clear Job Descriptions for Agents: When deploying AI agents, define clear roles and responsibilities. It should know exactly what tasks to automate and when to escalate to human oversight. 
• Define Clear Objectives: Establish specific goals for how AI will enhance your BC program, such as improving response times, automating manual processes, or enhancing data quality. 

Select the Right AI Partner 

The security and integrity of your BC program depend on choosing an AI provider who understands your needs: 

• Data Privacy: Avoid public AI systems that store or mine your sensitive data. Look for solutions that offer secure, private deployments. 
• Customization and Personalization: The AI solution should be tailored to your organization’s specific requirements, ensuring that it provides relevant and actionable insights. It should also be designed with BC challenges and activities specifically in mind.
• Security & Compliance: Choose an AI provider that adheres to industry standards such as SOC 2 and ISO 42001 to ensure data protection and regulatory compliance.
• Choose market leaders: Make sure your providers are up-to-date on the latest capabilities and continually delivering thought leadership and resources. Ask any potential provider whether they have a culture of using AI internally. 

Embrace Continuous Improvement 

AI is not a set-it-and-forget-it tool. It thrives on continuous learning: 

• Iterative Enhancements: Regularly update your AI systems with new data and feedback from real-world incidents. 
• Maintain Human Oversight: Maintain a balance between automation and human judgment. While AI can handle many tasks, expert oversight is crucial to address nuanced situations. 

Embrace the Future of Business Continuity with AI

The integration of AI into business continuity programs is more than just a trend—it’s a strategic imperative. By automating manual processes, enhancing data quality, and enabling proactive decision-making, AI empowers organizations to transition from basic survival to strategic leadership. As discussed in the webinar, whether you’re just beginning your AI journey or looking to advance your existing program, the potential benefits are unignorable. 

Now is the time to seize the opportunity. Reevaluate your current BC program, identify areas where AI can drive improvement, and start building a future-proof strategy. With the right approach and partner, you can not only scale your BC program with AI but also transform it into a dynamic, competitive advantage that stands the test of time. 

Want to see how Fusion’s AI-powered capabilities can take your program to the next level? Request a demo and speak with a member of our team to learn more.