Matthew Jones, CTCO at Greenhous Group, brings a unique view by merging technology and communications to solve business challenges.
It’s never been easier to build something with AI. That’s the good news, and, if we’re not careful, the problem.
In 2024, 72% of companies worldwide reported using AI in at least one business function. That’s a staggering jump in just a few years. It reflects a growing confidence in the technology and a growing expectation that if you’re not doing something with AI, you’re already behind.
But for all the excitement, I can’t shake the sense that we’re moving faster than we’re thinking. While businesses are sprinting to roll out experiments, most have not yet stopped to ask the harder, slower questions: Who’s accountable if this goes wrong? How do we know it’s fair? What happens when it scales?
Governance isn’t a trending topic yet, but it will be. And when it hits the front of the queue, many organizations will find themselves unprepared.
The Age Of Frictionless Prototyping
AI has become wildly accessible. Building a chatbot or rolling out automated content tools a few years ago required months of development time and hefty budgets. Now? One team, one tool, one afternoon.
That’s progress, but it comes with trade-offs. When experimentation is this easy, skipping the due diligence is tempting. We launch without defining ownership. We deploy without thinking about transparency. We copy what works in one department and paste it into another without asking if the underlying data, context or outcomes match.
In short, we’ve built a culture of frictionless prototyping. Governance hasn’t caught up.
The Governance Gap
The European Union’s AI Act, which officially came into force on August 1, 2024, categorizes AI systems by risk level and will soon require businesses to document, monitor and explain how these systems work, especially those used in HR, finance or customer engagement.
Yet despite this, most organizations still lack a formal governance framework. According to McKinsey’s AI Adoption Report (2023), via Consilien, only 35% of companies currently have anything resembling one in place. That’s a significant gap, and it’s growing.
We aren’t in crisis yet, but we are at a crossroads. It’s easy to think of AI governance as something you’ll sort out after the pilot proves successful. But by then, you may already be dealing with reputational risks, compliance headaches or worse—harm to your users.
What Good Governance Looks Like
In practice, governance doesn’t need to be heavy-handed or bureaucratic. Done well, it’s an enabler, not an obstacle. Here’s what I believe it should look like:
1. Start early. If your AI project doesn’t have an owner, a fundamental risk threshold and a plan for measuring impact, it’s not ready—no matter how good the tech is.
2. Make it visible. You don’t need a board-level committee for every pilot. But someone, somewhere, should know what AI tools are being used across the business. A simple, shared register can prevent duplication and avoid invisible risks.
3. Train champions, not enforcers. We don’t need more blockers. We need team members who understand enough to ask the right questions. Think of governance as a skill set, not just a policy.
4. Assume regulation will catch up. It already has in the EU. The U.K. isn’t far behind. Waiting until compliance is mandatory could mean retrofitting policy instead of shaping it. Start now.
The Business Case For Being Diligent
Governance doesn’t generate headlines. You won’t see a LinkedIn carousel go viral about a perfectly scoped AI ethics review. But governance is what makes innovation sustainable. It protects your customers, your colleagues and your brand.
Done poorly or skipped entirely, it becomes the thing that undoes all your good work.
Final Thought
Right now, innovation is cheap, fast and everywhere. That’s exciting. However, the ability to build is not the same as the ability to manage, and what we’re building today will shape how customers trust us tomorrow.
Experiments are easy. Governance is coming. Let’s be ready for it.
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