Strong governance is not linear. It loops, learns, and adapts as the work evolves.
Supporting judgment with process
Professional judgment is essential, but it can't be the only line of defense against new AI risks such as algorithmic bias or data privacy issues. The most effective governance augments your team's great judgment with a formal process, ensuring their skills are supported, not strained.
Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good
A blind spot emerges when the search for a perfect future system prevents you from implementing good-enough, manual processes today. While you wait, the essential "governance muscle memory" in your team isn't being built. Adopting simple disciplines now, like tagging, reduces risk today and ensures your team is ready when the new tools arrive.
When your team is afraid to use AI
You've rolled out AI guidelines, but the blind spot is the unaddressed fear of breaking the rules or cheating. When your team is afraid to make a mistake, they will either avoid AI tools altogether or use them in the most basic, inefficient ways. This kills the very innovation and productivity you were hoping to gain.
When data responsibility is unclear
Your team knows to be careful with customer data, but the blind spot is ambiguity around the specific rules for AI. Clarity can be missing on who owns the data, what the team's responsibility is for protecting it, and what the safe process is for actually using it. Governance defines those boundaries.
Forgetting to measure the "before"
In the rush to explore what AI can do, a fundamental first step is often missed: marking the starting line. Without a simple snapshot of the "before," such as how long a task used to take or how many revisions it required, you can't prove how far you've come. Your "after" story, no matter how compelling, remains an anecdote without a "before" to give it context and credibility. Even basic benchmarks, such as time, accuracy, or volume, are enough to show progress.
Protecting your team in a silo
DIY approaches might work for a few projects, but they rarely scale and can create larger organizational risks. Effective governance is a shared effort. If that shared effort doesn't exist yet, the blind spot is failing to see the opportunity to lead. Your most powerful move is to invite partners from legal, IT, security, privacy, and compliance to the table to build a practical playbook together.
When a great tool doesn't stick
A successful pilot creates a wave of excitement. The blind spot is assuming this excitement will change your team's daily habits. Without a clear path to follow, people will revert to their comfortable old workflows, leaving the new tool as a novelty, not an essential capability. Governance provides the clear rules that give your team the confidence to use a better tool, not just a familiar one.
When content is correct, but hollow
Your review process is strong, catching the tangible errors. The blind spot is the harder-to-spot intangible: polished content that lacks genuine insight. This generic quality, a hallmark of unrefined AI output, makes your brand sound commoditized and erodes its unique point of view.
Strengthen your AI governance by aligning policy with daily practice. Expera's AI Governance Blind Spot Diagnostic Worksheet helps you turn awareness into specific, defensible actions by identifying where your governance framework may not align with how work actually happens. Created by Expera Consulting, it reflects lessons learned from advising communications and marketing teams in regulated industries.
AI governance is the operational framework that bridges the gap between high-level policy and the daily workflows of your team. It’s not just a set of rules, but a living system of processes and responsibilities that ensures AI is used effectively, ethically, and in a way that protects and enhances the brand's unique voice.
Blind spots matter because the risks aren't just about compliance; they can be strategic. Unaddressed gaps can lead to a commoditized brand voice, kill innovation through fear, and erode customer trust by producing polished but hollow content.
Start by observing any gaps between your written rules and your team's daily reality. Are they afraid to experiment? Do successful pilots fail to scale? For a structured assessment, our AI Governance Blind Spot Diagnostic is designed to surface eight hidden gaps.
The goal is to turn awareness into action. After identifying a gap, the next step is to formalize a solution. This often means turning an informal process into a new standard operating procedure, creating a blameless review process for mistakes, or building the governance muscle memory through simple, repeatable disciplines.
The most powerful move is to lead the cross-functional effort. As a steward of brand reputation, you are uniquely positioned to build the table, inviting partners from legal, IT, security, privacy, and compliance to co-create a single, defensible playbook. Governance succeeds when it is a shared effort you initiate, not a siloed document you create.
We help communications and marketing leaders in regulated industries strengthen AI governance and close the gaps between policy and daily practice. Our approach combines creative judgment with disciplined risk management.
Catherine Richards, Managing Partner
catherine@experaconsulting.com
Bob Mitton, Managing Partner
bob@experaconsulting.com