← lovehudsonmaggio.co
The AI Governance Framework · free to use

Your org bought AI. Nobody governs it yet.

This is the strategic AI governance framework I deploy inside enterprise engagements — non-technical by design, written for the executive team, not the IT department. It's here in full, free, because the governance conversation should start before any invoice does. Take it to your board.

Deployed with enterprise clients · shared with care, details theirs.

How to use this — the conversation, in order.

Governance fails when it starts in the wrong room. This framework is built to travel through your organization in a specific sequence:

  1. The C-suite goes first. Define your AI stance, your beliefs about what AI should and shouldn't do here, and your AI-aligned goals — before any tool discussion. This is a leadership document, not a technical one.
  2. Then your internal teams. Each pillar below gets a named lead. Departments translate the stance into their own guidelines and training.
  3. Then IT and your CISO. Tool classification, access tiers, input/output policy — the technical enforcement of decisions leadership already made.
  4. Then your agency and vendor partners. Everyone creating in your name works inside the same boundaries — and can show you their work at the line-item level.
  5. Then legal signs off. Policies, prompts, disclosures, and ways of working — reviewed and attested, so the whole system has a signature on it.
If your organization bought AI before it did any of this, you're in the majority — and this framework is the catch-up path.
Foundations

Start with a stance, not a stack

Three things get written down before anything gets deployed:

The execution discipline

Context engineering — the connective tissue.

Governance beliefs become system behavior through context engineering: deliberately shaping the environment your AI operates in. Six dimensions, each a design decision:

Persona definitionWho is this agent, and how is it framed to behave?
Task intent modelingWhat outcome is each AI function accountable for?
Input boundariesWhat content, data, and constraints are acceptable?
Context windowsWhat knowledge — internal or external — is it allowed to see?
Output shapingFormat, tone, and interpretability, designed on purpose.
Escalation logicWhen must a human take over? Written down, not assumed.
The structure

Five pillars, each with a named lead

PeopleRole-based access · AI literacy and ethics training · employee attestation to an AI Use Handbook · department-specific guidelines.
TechnologyTiered tool classification · input/output policy enforcement · onboarding workflows · internal knowledge via retrieval.
Finance & ProductProduct impact assessments · roadmap inclusion decisions · augment-vs-outsource alignment · decision logs.
Risk & RegulatoryCompliance alignment (GDPR, HIPAA, and yours) · legal review of policies, prompts, disclosures · risk tolerances and redlines.
Governance OperationsA council with real oversight · quarterly review cycles · living policy updates · documented agent autonomy policies.
Horizontal: context engineeringRuns across all five pillars — the repeatable discipline that keeps every agent inside the lines.
The question everyone skips

How autonomous are your agents allowed to be?

Every AI agent in your organization should be classified before it acts:

The principle behind both, and behind everything I build: AI does the work; a human keeps the click. Autonomy is a design decision with a signature on it — never a default.
The roadmap

First 30 days, first 90, then forever

Days 1–30Appoint the governance sponsor and council · define the stance and beliefs · run the strategy alignment review · assign the five pillar leads.
Days 31–90Write the first AI Use Handbook · train the relevant teams · classify existing tools into tiers · define legal and product review processes.
OngoingQuarterly reviews against strategy, regulation, and incidents · mature the context-engineering practice · keep the model living, owned, and versioned.

What it produces along the way: an AI Use Handbook · a product AI-impact checklist · a legal review protocol · a role-based access matrix · a context-engineering pattern library · a policy and attestation archive.

When you're ready for the signed version

This page is the framework. The engagement is everything that makes it real in your organization: the stance workshop with your leadership, the pillar leads chosen and trained, the tool tiers classified, the agent policies written, and the version your legal team actually signs. That's work I do — and it usually starts with one conversation about where your organization already is.

Start the governance conversation →