The situation
Our client had grown very rapidly to a mid-sized business over just a few years, through a combination of acquisition and organic growth. The board and executive team were concerned that generative AI had the potential to disrupt their business model quickly, and that the pace of change could cut revenue and increase costs at the same time.
Before reacting, they wanted an independent, objective read on where AI actually left them exposed, and where it genuinely presented an opportunity, rather than advice from anyone with an AI product to sell.
Why independent advice mattered
Almost every party offering AI advice has a platform, licence or implementation to sell, and their view of your risk and opportunity is shaped accordingly. That is the opposite of what a board needs when the technology is moving faster than the governance around it.
As independent technology advisors with nothing to sell and no implementation revenue to defend, our role was to give the board an honest picture: the real exposure to manage, and the real opportunities worth pursuing.
What we did
The review looked hard at both sides of AI: the risk and the opportunity.
Independent review of the technology environment
We quickly identified several key issues. The unauthorised use of public AI tools, or Shadow AI, was rife, with 30% of employees admitting they already used AI tools in their work without effective security controls. The foundations of information and knowledge management were weak, with data quality and security controls not fit to support future AI initiatives. And the organisation’s overall IT risk profile had degraded, on the back of a cyber posture that had not been actively managed in recent years.
IT governance and AI awareness uplift
We revamped the IT governance processes and implemented an AI awareness and education campaign, so staff understood the dangers, the risks and the genuine benefits of AI tools, rather than using them blind.
A business-outcome AI working group
We helped stand up an AI working group focused on business outcomes, to identify use cases that could deliver NPV-positive process improvements, and to classify each as either strategically expansive or defensive.
A governed, controlled rollout
Using clear assessment criteria, we facilitated workshops with each business unit to weigh the opportunity, cost and impact of a controlled rollout of the major commercial AI tools, inside a governance framework built to manage security, privacy and commercial risk.
The outcome
- A revamped IT governance framework that reduced and actively managed a growing cyber risk to the business
- Business cases for several high-value strategic projects, using AI alongside the organisation’s existing skills and market credibility to serve segments that had previously been uneconomic
- Deliberate knowledge and data-quality processes, so future AI-enabled data assets could actually be leveraged
- A controlled rollout of commercial AI tools, with security, commercial and client-messaging controls in place
The organisation moved from anxiety about AI to a governed, evidence-based position: the risk under control, and a costed set of AI opportunities it could actually pursue.
Worried AI could disrupt your business?
If generative AI is moving faster than your governance, an independent audit shows you the real exposure to manage and the real opportunity worth pursuing.
No pitch, no sales process. Just a senior view.
