The Governance Gap in AI Adoption and How to Fix It

Wednesday, September 30
10 a.m. Pacific | 1 p.m. Eastern

AI adoption has outpaced the frameworks meant to govern it, and the fallout is landing squarely on compliance and risk teams, not just IT. GRC reviews are increasingly the reason AI-heavy tools get stalled or blocked in procurement. Meanwhile, CFOs are asking hard questions about ballooning token spend that isn't translating into measurable productivity gains.

In this fireside chat, Chris Steffen, VP of Research at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), sits down with Justin Beals to unpack what's actually happening inside enterprise AI governance right now: why procurement teams are pumping the brakes, what "token sprawl" really costs organizations, and why the architecture behind an AI tool (not just its feature set) should be a top consideration for any compliance or risk leader evaluating new vendors.

This is a candid, thought-leadership conversation, not a product walkthrough. Expect a grounded discussion of where AI governance is headed, what questions decision makers should be asking vendors, and how the most trustworthy AI vendors are rethinking cost, architecture, and data practices to earn a seat at the table.

Attendees will learn:

• Why governance gaps, not product quality, are the reason AI tools get blocked in procurement

• What's driving runaway token spend without proportional productivity gains

• How AI architecture choices directly affect your risk exposure, cost predictability, and long-term vendor trust

• What GRC teams should be evaluating before greenlighting AI tools, including what exposure it creates, whether your data trains the model, and what the vendor's testing methodology actually looks like

Who should attend: Compliance leaders, risk officers, GRC directors, and business decision makers evaluating AI tools, not just security and IT teams.