Who should govern AI in the company?
A light body that brings together leadership, business, technology and legal, and that makes decisions. Not one more committee that approves everything, but the place where priorities, autonomy levels and stops are decided.
Updated on 24 October 2026
What is going on.
As AI spreads through the company, decisions become scattered. One department chooses a tool, another launches a project, IT sets technical rules, legal worries after the event. Nobody has an overall view, and nobody decides.
The usual response is one more committee, which reviews every project and ends up slowing everything down. What works is lighter: a small body bringing together leadership, business, technology and legal, which meets regularly and decides. It sets priorities, approves each use’s level of autonomy, settles conflicts and dares to stop what is not delivering.
What we observe.
- Committees that approve everything decide nothing.They become a compulsory stage that teams learn to get around.
- Legal often arrives too late.It discovers uses once they are in place, when correcting them is expensive.
- Few bodies have the power to stop things.Launching is rewarded; stopping looks like failure.
What you can do right now.
- Bring together a body of four or five people, chaired by a member of the leadership team.
- Give it three decisions to take: priorities, autonomy levels and stops.
- Limit what reaches it: sensitive uses and trade-offs, not every tool.