AI ownership
One named person per AI tool who can answer four questions: what it is used for, who can use it, what data it can reach and when it was last checked. They do not have to do the technical work. They have to be the person the question goes to.
What it means in practice
The ownership article says unowned AI rarely fails loudly. It drifts: output quality slips, access widens, rules go stale and incidents have no reporting route. It also notes that under the EU AI Act, deployers of high-risk systems must assign competent people to oversee them, so an owner has to exist before that duty applies.
How we use it
The ownership article’s thirty-day sequence follows the AI tool inventory with one person per tool, who has the authority to pause it and a review date in the calendar. It adds that an audit does the same across a whole estate. The sequence is in what happens when nobody owns the AI you have rolled out.
FAQ
Questions about AI ownership
Who should own AI in a company?
One named person per tool, ideally someone who feels the consequences when it goes wrong, such as the head of the function that uses it, and not automatically IT. The ownership article says they need the authority to pause the tool.
Why not a committee?
The ownership article says ownership by committee is ownership by nobody. A group can advise and agree principles, but a group cannot be the person who gets the call when the tool does something odd.
What it means for a business
Buying a tool and owning it are different jobs: the first ends at launch and the second does not. Shared ownership across IT, a department and the managing director is the usual failure, because nobody holds the whole.
Ready to put this to work?
Tell us where your team is with AI and we will tell you honestly what would make the biggest difference.