Five Pillars of AI Governance

A systematic approach from strategy to measurement. Each pillar builds on the one before — skip a pillar, and the ones that follow are built on sand.

54 controls · 5 pillars · Continuous governance cycle
1

STEER

What should we build and why?

Strategic governance that determines which AI initiatives to pursue, in what order, with what expected outcomes, and who is accountable.

9
controls
CEO or Board-level designee
2

ARCHITECT

What foundations do we need?

Build the factory before building the product.

12
controls
CIO or CTO
3

GOVERN

What are the rules?

Define and enforce the policies, permissions, boundaries, and compliance requirements that determine what AI agents can and cannot do.

9
controls
CISO or Chief Risk Officer
4

MONITOR & CONTROL

What is actually happening?

Runtime behavioral monitoring, anomaly detection, audit trails, kill switches, and incident response for AI agent systems.

13
controls
COO
5

MEASURE

Was it worth it?

Without measurement, governance is overhead.

11
controls
CFO
Measure feeds back to Steer — governance is a continuum, not a checklist