Problems with Business Continuity Planning? GenAI can help...

Business Continuity (BC) planning is all about staying resilient when things go sideways. But in an age of continuous change and increasingly complex systems, traditional planning approaches can fall short. That’s where Generative AI (GenAI) can help – not as a replacement, but as an intelligent partner helping us think faster, deeper, and more creatively.

Let’s dive into how GenAI can reshape the way we think about continuity.

What is it?

Business Continuity Planning is the practice of creating systems and processes that ensure your organization can continue operating during a disruption and then recover afterwards – whether it’s a cyberattack, extreme weather event, or system failure.

Done right, BC helps organizations:

Maintain critical operations
Protect employees and customers
Preserve reputation and trust
Recover faster and more completely

The challenge? BC is often viewed as a static plan on a shelf – updated infrequently, difficult to test, and time-consuming to manage. This is where GenAI can help – think of it as a tireless assistant with the ability to analyze, draft, simulate, and challenge your BC plans – on demand.

What does it mean from a business perspective?

Ignoring Business Continuity comes with real risks. GenAI brings new capabilities that help close the gap.

Here’s what that means in practical terms:

Unidentified Risks: Without BC planning, blind spots in operations go unnoticed. GenAI can review documents, surface gaps, and suggest improvements instantly.
Time-Consuming Exercises: Traditional BC plan reviews can take days to review and update. GenAI dramatically reduces the “time to draft”, freeing up staff and speeding up the review process.
Shadow AI Risks: Employees are already using GenAI tools – even without formal approval. That’s a business risk. It’s better to bring GenAI into the light and manage it properly.
Lack of Post-Incident Analysis: After an event, GenAI can help analyze what happened, generate reports, and suggest changes – something that can be skipped, or paid lip-service to, due to time constraints.
Human Dependency: What happens if the one person who understands the plan (and how GenAI fits into it) is unavailable during an incident? Understand the GenAI usage in your organisation.
Regulatory and Ethical Pressure: With privacy and compliance rules evolving, AI tools like Microsoft Copilot can help track and flag risks – if used properly.

What do I do with it?

If you’re in IT, Risk, Operations – or just trying to help your organization be more resilient here are some concrete actions to get started:

Acknowledge that GenAI is already in play. Assume teams are using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Copilot, and start managing their use rather than ignoring it.
Use GenAI to review your current BC plan. Ask GenAI to review your plan (while respecting privacy and security policies) and prompt the AI to identify gaps, themes, and improvements.
Look for in-application GenAI. Increasingly vendors are incorporating GenAI into their applications – look for this in your BCP application and understand how it can help you in the business processes the application supports.
Run tabletop exercises with AI-generated scenarios. Have GenAI create increasingly complex disruption scenarios to test your team’s response.
Introduce AI risk frameworks. Look into NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework, ISO 42001 and ISO 23894, to manage risk systematically.
Build AI literacy in your teams. Teach staff how to talk to GenAI, what to watch out for, and how to validate its output. (People are still key to the process – GenAI isn’t going to solve every problem or deal with every situation.)
Create a Community of Practice. Bring together people across the organization who are experimenting with GenAI in continuity planning – share wins, learn from mistakes.
Start small, but start now. Use GenAI on one policy or process. Reflect on the results. Iterate.

What steps is your organization taking to incorporate GenAI into your business continuity strategy?

Problems with Business Continuity Planning? GenAI can help…

What is it?

What does it mean from a business perspective?

What do I do with it?

Further Reading