AI Governance is the Key to Success

When I take organizations through Thrive’s AI Adoption Accelerator, which is a four-week program designed to help businesses operationalize AI, the second module deals with AI Governance.

While the first module is concerned with AI Readiness and is designed to assess where a business falls on the AI adoption scale, the AI Governance module provides the structure most businesses are lacking when they begin their AI journey.

Generally defined as the system of rules, practices, and processes that guide how an organization manages and oversees its use of AI, AI Governance looks different at every organization.

It’s an ever-evolving topic and my views on it are evolving as well—however, I think a basic AI Governance structure should include, at minimum, an AI Charter, an AI Council, and an AI Policy.

Here’s why.

• The AI Charter provides the purpose of the AI Council, its long-term goals, and clear objectives it aims to achieve.
• The AI Council provides oversight and leadership, ensuring that AI initiatives follow the Charter’s principles and align with business objectives.
• The AI Policy translates the Charter’s principles into operational rules and procedures, guiding the practical implementation of AI in a compliant and responsible way.

An AI Governance framework that includes at least these three components ensures that there’s an agreed-upon process for how you’ll make decisions on AI tools and use cases, what you’ll benchmark those tools and use cases against, which business objectives you’re mapping your use cases to, who’s responsible for what when it comes to pilot programs, and lots more.

Essentially, good AI governance is about making sure you’ve got a thoughtful structure for how you’re going to manage AI initiatives across your organization.

Executive Buy-In Matters

BCG writes that good governance starts at the top, and the data seems to support that.

Executives who personally use AI at work—and executive sponsors who are aware and engaged in the creation of Councils and policies—run organizations that are far more successful in their AI initiatives than ones that don’t.

When members of your leadership team are directly involved in AI projects, it sends a clear message throughout the organization about the importance and potential of these technologies.

McKinsey writes that “early generative AI adopters are finding that to capture more value, they need to get more disciplined.”

What I’ve seen so far is that organizations that successfully move from Random Acts of AI Adoption to piloting and, ultimately, scaling AI initiatives, take the time to get their governance right.

So before you move too far down the road to AI, get your governance in place.

As the pace of AI innovation accelerates, you’ll be very glad you did.