Building an AI Governance Program for a Public Company

Rikka Law Capability Spotlight

A public company engaged us after AI adoption had already spread across the organization ahead of formal governance. The pattern is a common one: a mix of enterprise and personal accounts, and AI-assisted output moving into work product faster than review processes could keep up. The question facing the legal team is one many now share: how should a regulated public company govern AI adoption that is already underway?

We start from what is actually happening rather than an idealized picture of the company’s AI use. Working from a privileged team survey and stakeholder interviews, we map where AI is already in use and where the real exposure sits, then build governance that fits the company’s existing decision-making structures rather than a separate process no one would follow.

Outcomes

• An enterprise-wide AI governance policy that integrates into existing decision-making structures rather than creating a parallel process, covering approved tools and access tiers, data input restrictions, human review standards, vendor AI risk requirements, and SEC-aligned recordkeeping.
• A complete inventory of AI tools in active use, categorized by account type, data exposure, and regulatory risk, so shadow AI and uncontrolled data flows are surfaced before they become a security or regulatory problem.
• A maturity assessment of current AI readiness and a board-ready roadmap that translates the findings into a prioritized action plan the company can act on directly.
• A repeatable path to governed deployment of AI agents that channels staff adoption into safe use rather than blocking it.

If your organization is already using AI and your governance has not caught up, the exposure is real and compounding. Unmanaged AI adoption creates SEC, data security, and compliance risk for publicly traded companies that standard IT policies were not designed to address. We build AI governance programs that fit your actual regulatory environment and unlock safe adoption rather than slow it down.