08/20/2026
Here's a question worth asking your leadership team this week: who actually owns AI in your organization?
Most companies answer "IT", and it makes sense at first glance. But John Munsell recently sat down with Shmuel Herschberg on the Built To Scale Podcast and walked through exactly why that answer tends to create more problems than it solves.
When IT owns AI, the default response is restriction. Governance becomes a bottleneck. And meanwhile, employees are using personal accounts, installing tools on laptops without authorization, and potentially exposing confidential data to public training models.
John's approach separates governance from IT entirely, building a three-tier structure that scales with the organization's capabilities; from a sandbox for early experimentation all the way up to an AI Council that sets binding policy.
He also described a tabletop breach simulation his firm runs with organizations. Six people, a simulated crisis, and cascading problems that hit legal, finance, PR, and the executive team simultaneously. Every time, the room realizes they were not prepared.
If you're still sorting out who owns AI in your org, this conversation is worth the time.
Check out the complete discussion in the comments.