49 How does the mindset differ in Israel’s GC community when compared to many other countries? Nira: How does the mindset differ in Israel’s GC community when compared to many other countries? Israel’s relatively small business community adds another dimension. Many executives know each other through previous roles, law firms, or universities. As a result, companies often consider how strategic decisions might affect peers within the market. Since most senior legal and business professionals operate in Tel Aviv, the ecosystem remains highly connected. GCs frequently meet in person, share insights, and exchange perspectives on market developments, which reinforces the strong role that legal leadership plays within Israeli companies. We also caught up with Hila Hubsch, Head of Corporate, External and Legal Affairs at Microsoft Israel, and learned more about the opportunities and challenges today. With regulation still catching up with technology, particularly around AI and cloud infrastructure, how do you make decisions today when the rules of tomorrow are still unclear? Hila Hubsch, Head of Corporate, External and Legal Affairs at Microsoft Israel: “When the legal landscape is uncertain, I rely on a principle based and proactive approach to making decisions. At Microsoft, we’ve built internal governance frameworks, especially our Responsible AI Standard that guide how we design, test, deploy, and monitor AI systems long before formal regulation arrives. These frameworks operationalize core values of fairness, transparency, accountability, and safety, allowing us to move quickly without compromising trust. In addition, even when new technologies aren’t explicitly regulated, foundational legal principles still apply. AI or cloud initiatives must protect customer data, ensure accuracy, and honor our contractual and privacy commitments. The fact that something is “new” does not exempt it from established legal norms. We closely track regulatory trends worldwide. It’s clear that regulators are shifting toward risk based, layered approaches to AI governance. The EU AI Act is the clearest indication: transparency, safeguards, documentation, and human oversight are becoming baseline expectations. In order to stay ahead of the curve, we are already aligning our engineering and governance practices with emerging regulatory expectations, ensuring that our internal standards evolve in step with, and often ahead of, the frameworks taking shape globally.” Where do you most often feel the tension between commercial speed and legal risk, particularly in fast-moving areas like AI? How do you decide when to move ahead versus pause? What do you expect most from external counsel at those moments? Hila: “As a company operating at the forefront of AI, we feel the tension between commercial velocity and legal risk most acutely when technology is advancing faster than regulatory frameworks. We manage that tension through governance. Microsoft’s public guidance consistently reinforces that innovation must be paired with responsible AI practices – strong privacy protections, rigorous security safeguards, transparency measures, and clear oversight structures. When legal risk is manageable - because we have strong technical guardrails, clear accountability, and confidence that our practices align with emerging global norms - we move forward. When uncertainty is too high, or when a new capability raises questions about safety, compliance, or broader impact, we slow down and reassess. You can see this reflected in our Responsible AI documentation. At those pivotal moments, we also consult external counsel for clarity and foresight. What we value most is jurisdiction specific insight: how regulators are likely to interpret emerging obligations, how to calibrate risk across markets, and what documentation, controls, and governance structures will withstand scrutiny.” What legal or regulatory issues demand the most attention today, and how have expectations from regulators, governments, or enterprise customers shifted in the past year? US-ISRAEL LEGAL REVIEW GC VIRTUAL SUMMIT
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjgzNzA=