AI Governance 101: Policies Your Company Needs

I know "governance" sounds like the opposite of fun, but hear me out — this is the stuff that keeps your AI adoption from blowing up in your face. And it's way simpler than you think. You need basically three policies, and none of them need to be longer than a page.

Policy 1: Acceptable Use
What AI tools are approved? What data can go into them? What can't? This is your foundation. Keep it simple:
• Approved tools: [list them — ChatGPT Enterprise, Claude, etc.]
• Green data: Public info, general questions, marketing copy, internal brainstorming
• Red data: Customer PII, financial records, proprietary code, strategic plans, legal documents
• Yellow data: Internal docs, non-sensitive business data — use approved tools only, not free tiers

Policy 2: Output Review
When does AI output need human review before it goes out the door?
• Always review: Anything going to customers, into production, to regulators, or to the board
• Light review: Internal communications, brainstorming outputs, personal productivity use
• No review needed: Pure learning/experimentation (as long as you don't send the output anywhere)

Policy 3: Vendor Evaluation
Before anyone signs up for a new AI tool:
• Does it have enterprise data handling (no training on your data)?
• Where is data stored? For how long?
• Can you delete your data?
• Is there SOC 2 / comparable certification?
• Who's the internal owner responsible for this tool?

That's it. Three policies, three pages max. You can have a working AI governance framework by end of week. Perfect is the enemy of good here — a simple framework you actually enforce beats a comprehensive one that sits in a shared drive.