"Governance" sounds like something you need a compliance department for. For most founders and small leadership teams, it's really just four decisions, written down somewhere the team can find them, and revisited as the company grows.
1. What data is allowed into which tools
Not all AI tools handle data the same way. Decide — in writing — what categories of information (customer PII, source code, financials, unreleased product plans) are allowed into which approved tools, and make that list easy to find. This single decision prevents most of the actual incidents we see.
2. Who can approve a new AI tool
One person or a small group, not a committee with a monthly meeting cadence. The goal is a same-week answer, not a rubber stamp — slow approval processes are what create shadow AI usage in the first place.
3. Where a human has to be in the loop
Decide upfront which categories of action require human review before they happen — anything touching money, customer communication, hiring/firing decisions, or public-facing content is a reasonable starting list. Everything else can move faster.
4. How you'll know something went wrong
You don't need sophisticated monitoring on day one. You need one clear channel where anyone can flag "this AI output looked wrong" without friction, and someone accountable for actually looking at what comes in.
Governance at this stage isn't a document that sits in a drive nobody opens. It's four decisions short enough to fit on one page, actually followed, and revisited every quarter.
What this isn't
This isn't a substitute for legal or regulatory compliance work if your industry requires it (health, finance, and a few other sectors have specific obligations worth dedicated legal review). For most companies, though, the gap isn't a missing compliance framework — it's that nobody wrote down even these four basic decisions.
The takeaway
Start with a one-page policy covering these four questions, owned by a real person, revisited quarterly. That's a stronger governance posture than most companies twice your size actually have.