The Importance of an AI Council and How to Build One That Works

Artificial intelligence is no longer sitting at the edges of organisational strategy. It is shaping decision-making, accelerating operational efficiency, and redefining how services are delivered. Yet for many organisations, AI has arrived faster than the structures needed to guide it. The result is a familiar tension: rapid experimentation on one hand, and growing uncertainty about risks, ethics, and long-term direction on the other.

An AI Council is one of the simplest, most effective ways to bring order to that complexity. Not as another bureaucratic layer, but as a mechanism for lifting AI out of siloed experiments and aligning it to the organisation’s broader objectives. When structured well, an AI Council becomes the organisation’s centre of gravity for responsible innovation. Part strategic steering group, part risk lens, and part cultural catalyst.

Every effective council begins with clarity of purpose. An AI Council charter is essential. It sets out why the council exists, how it will operate, and the principles that guide its decisions. The charter doesn’t need to be lengthy, but it must be unambiguous. It should articulate the organisation’s position on ethical AI, transparency, accountability, data governance, and the use of emerging technologies. It becomes the anchor point whenever questions arise, particularly as new AI capabilities appear and policy landscapes shift.

Selecting the right mix of people matters just as much as defining purpose. A strong council is intentionally diverse. It shouldn’t be a group of technologists debating model architectures, but a cross-functional body that reflects how AI will touch every part of the organisation. Senior executives play a critical role, providing strategic oversight and ensuring decisions carry weight. An AI Product Manager sits at the heart of this mix, alongside leaders from IT, legal, marketing, operations, analytics, and the PMO bring context from their respective domains, highlighting risks, opportunities and impacts that may not be immediately obvious.

Technical experts, such as data scientists, AI specialists and security professionals, all provide insight into feasibility and risk. Ethical or risk advisors, whether internal or external, ensure decisions remain grounded in fairness, privacy requirements and regulatory expectations. And importantly, business unit leaders help translate abstract potential into real commercial or service outcomes. A designated chairperson keeps the group focused, ensures follow-through, and maintains momentum. Without this role, councils often drift into occasional discussion rather than structured governance.

The defining feature of an effective AI Council is that it does things. It steers, evaluates, challenges and enables. Its remit typically spans strategy, ethics, delivery and culture. It identifies where AI can create meaningful value and prioritises those opportunities based on outcomes, not hype. It sets the guardrails that ensure innovation remains responsible. It oversees pilots and guides integration work so AI doesn’t become a patchwork of disconnected tools. And it supports the development of organisational capability, because AI literacy will be as important as technical expertise in the years ahead.

Here, the AI Product Manager plays a critical role in operationalising council decisions, turning strategic intent into executable plans, managing dependencies, and ensuring delivery aligns with governance principles. This blend of oversight and enablement prevents the council from becoming a passive advisory committee. It positions the council as both a strategic enabler and a check-and-balance, helping the organisation move quickly without losing sight of risk, compliance or ethics.

Many organisations assume they need to begin their AI journey with new platforms, new tools and new investment. In reality, most already have AI embedded in analytics platforms, workflow tools, marketing systems, customer service automation and cloud services, but these capabilities are poorly understood.

A pragmatic first step is an AI Readiness Assessment. Catalogue existing tools, models, licences and automations. Map where they sit, how they are being used, and whether associated data risks are being managed adequately. This exercise often reveals underutilised capabilities, duplicated investments, or unmanaged exposure. It also provides a realistic baseline from which the council and the AI Product Manager, can shape priorities and initiate small, low-risk pilots that demonstrate value early.

The organisations that succeed in the AI era will be those that approach the technology with both ambition and discipline. An AI Council creates the structure for that balance. It gives leaders the confidence to innovate at speed, while ensuring every initiative is grounded in ethics, accountability and measurable value.

As AI becomes woven into every part of organisational operations, from customer engagement to core decision-making, the presence of a dedicated council and an AI Product Manager, will shift from a competitive advantage to a basic expectation. Establishing an AI council now positions organisations not just to keep pace with change, but to shape it.

For organisations unsure where to begin or looking to validate their current approach, AC3’s AI Readiness Assessment provides a clear, structured pathway. It provides a best practice analysis of your current data and AI ecosystem, and recommendations to govern and scale AI responsibly. Partnering with AC3 ensures your AI Council is built on a foundation of practical insight and operational clarity, so you’re ready for what comes next.