Governance
Governance
Trust & Control — keeping AI operating safely and consistently within the boundaries a company and society set for it.
Role of this domain
Governance covers the trust side of the five-domain framework’s Foundation. If infrastructure is the physical foundation, governance is the logical and institutional foundation of an AI system.
flowchart TD
A["🛡 AI Governance<br/>Trust & Control"] --> B["Guardrails<br/>Safe output"]
A --> C["Monitoring<br/>Continuous observability"]
A --> D["Auditability"]
A --> E["Cost efficiency<br/>FinOps"]
A --> F["Ethics & Compliance"]
A --> G["AI-Native Design<br/>Code quality control"]
style A fill:#0891B2,stroke:#0E7490,color:#fff
style B fill:#2563EB,stroke:#1D4ED8,color:#fff
style C fill:#7C3AED,stroke:#6D28D9,color:#fff
style D fill:#EA580C,stroke:#C2410C,color:#fff
style E fill:#16A34A,stroke:#15803D,color:#fff
style F fill:#1E3A5F,stroke:#1E3A5F,color:#fff
style G fill:#0891B2,stroke:#0E7490,color:#fff
Core components
| Component | Description |
|---|---|
| Guardrails & security | Blocking harmful content, preventing leaks of personal data and trade secrets |
| Monitoring & observability | Hallucination checks, latency, and cost tracking |
| Auditability | Traceable logging and after-the-fact verification of AI output |
| FinOps | Managing AI cost sustainability at the governance level |
| Ethics & compliance | AI ethics guidelines, responding to regulation such as the EU AI Act |
| AI-Native design | Controlling the quality of AI-generated code via ADRs, tech-debt tracking, and PR checklists |
Beyond security: FinOps
Governance is not only about security. Cost efficiency(FinOps) has to be managed at the governance level to keep AI adoption sustainable.
Health check questions
“Can we verify after the fact why our AI system produced a given result?”
- Are all AI requests and responses logged?
- Is a hallucination-detection mechanism applied in production?
- Is monthly AI spend tracked and optimized against budget?
- Do we regularly review compliance with regulation such as the EU AI Act?
- Is AI-generated code written to meet ADR standards?