Let’s say one of your teams builds an AI agent that actually works. Word gets around, and seemingly overnight, there are twenty more built by people in finance, legal, HR, and support. Most of them are useful, but when someone suddenly gets a chatbot response showing customer data they shouldn’t have access to, reality hits.

The real test of enterprise AI readiness isn’t at all whether your coworkers can confidently work with AI. Instead, it has everything to do with governance and security, global, cross-cutting policy, and privacy. Many enterprises are underprepared to face these issues: a survey from Databricks and the Economist found that “40% of respondents believed their organization’s AI governance program is insufficient.” And Microsoft’s Data Security Index reports that “only 47% of organizations across industries report they are implementing specific GenAI security controls.”

Having worked with many CIOs to develop strategies to govern their AI systems, this piece is a deep dive into the specifics of what works and what doesn’t. Keeping employees, customers and your entire organization safe must be your top priority before you even start rolling agents out.