AI governance guide
Five steps to make AI governance real for a small team.
Inventory your AI, assign one owner, set three simple rules, keep evidence, review on a rhythm. Plain steps, written for the team that has to do the work — not the committee that has to approve it.
Built for: For founders, ops leads, and IT managers in small-to-mid organizations who are asked to govern AI but not given a framework.
Email me the guideStep 1
Inventory your AI.
You cannot govern what you cannot see. Build the real list of every tool, feature, and workflow where AI already touches your business.
Step 2
Assign one owner.
Governance without an owner is a document nobody reads. One name, not a committee — the person every AI question goes to.
Step 3
Set three simple rules.
A one-page policy beats a forty-page policy nobody has read: data boundaries, human review, and an approved-tools list.
Step 4
Keep evidence.
Governance you cannot prove did not happen. Dated records that answer a customer, insurer, or regulator with links, not memory.
Step 5
Review on a rhythm.
AI tools change monthly. A 30-minute quarterly review keeps the snapshot honest. One review is a project; two is a system.
Continue your review
Sources and review
- ISO/IEC 42001 — AI management systems — International Organization for Standardization
- NIST AI Risk Management Framework — National Institute of Standards and Technology
Reviewed by GuvFlow editorial review on .