Your AI Program Is Only as Strong as Your Data Governance

A large part of "responsible AI" has nothing to do with AI at all, it's data governance. The core practices to get right first:

1. Data Classification: Know what data you hold and how sensitive it is.
2. Retention Discipline: Keep data only as long as it's actually needed.
3. Automation: Automate classification where possible, rather than relying on manual upkeep.
4. Access Alignment: Match security and privacy controls to the classification level.
5. Criticality Awareness: Know which data matters most, especially for resilience planning.
6. Foundation First: Fix data governance gaps before scaling AI on top of them.

Gen-AI won't create these gaps. It will just find them faster, so it's worth closing them before you scale.