AI Governance Committee Charter Template

What decisions or AI-enabled activities need cross-functional oversight? Which people, customers, workers, patients, students, or communities may be affected? What useful outcome should improve, and what outcome must not be traded away?

[Organization] establishes the AI Governance Committee to oversee the responsible evaluation, approval, operation, material change, suspension, and retirement of AI use cases within its defined scope. The committee protects accountable human decision-making and requires evidence proportionate to consequence.

Does scope include purchased software with embedded AI, internal models, agents, pilots, and vendor tools? Which low-risk uses may follow a lighter documented review? Which uses are prohibited or require legal, clinical, security, privacy, or other specialist review?

This charter applies to [business units, geographies, systems, vendors, data classes, and use-case tiers]. It does not replace specialist review, professional judgment, contracts, law, regulation, security approval, privacy assessment, or other required authority.

Who grants the committee authority and retains executive accountability? Can the committee impose conditions, require additional evidence, or stop operation? Which decisions must be escalated to an executive, board, regulated owner, or other authority?

Within its approved scope, the committee may request evidence, assign conditions, approve bounded use, reject release, require re-review, pause operation, and recommend retirement. It may not waive legal duties, professional accountability, security controls, privacy rights, contractual obligations, or regulatory authority.

Which business, domain, technology, security, privacy, legal, risk, operations, accessibility, and affected-user perspectives are needed? Who owns the final business decision and who has independent challenge authority? How are conflicts, recusals, vacancies, and member training handled?

The committee includes a chair, secretary, accountable business representatives, domain and technical owners, and the independent review functions required by the use case. Members disclose conflicts, recuse when independence is impaired, and receive role-appropriate training.

What constitutes quorum, and which roles must be present for a valid decision? Is consensus required, or may a named accountable owner decide after recorded challenge? How are urgent decisions made, time-limited, and ratified?

The committee meets [cadence] and may convene for material changes or incidents. Quorum requires [roles or number]. Decisions record the evidence reviewed, conditions, dissent, conflicts, accountable approver, effective date, expiration or review date, and any escalation.

What use-case brief, system inventory, data map, vendor record, testing, human-control plan, and monitoring plan are required? Who validates evidence and decides whether it is sufficient for the consequence level? What happens when evidence is missing, disputed, stale, or no longer representative?

Each submission identifies the purpose, affected people, accountable owners, model or provider, data, integrations, allowed actions, consequence level, testing, human review, monitoring, incident route, rollback, and retirement conditions. Missing material evidence pauses the decision.

Which events require immediate pause, containment, or specialist escalation? Who can report a problem, who responds, and how can an affected person seek correction? Which records must be preserved and who decides when operation may resume?

The committee maintains routes for users, reviewers, operators, and affected people to report concerns. Material harm, unauthorized action, data exposure, control failure, or unacceptable drift triggers containment, evidence preservation, accountable investigation, correction, and a documented resume, restrict, or retire decision.

Where are agendas, evidence, decisions, exceptions, conditions, incidents, and follow-up actions stored? What retention, access, confidentiality, correction, and deletion rules apply? When does the charter or a use-case approval require reapproval?

The secretary maintains a dated decision register and action log with access and retention proportionate to sensitivity. This charter is reviewed at least [cadence] and after material organizational, legal, technical, vendor, data, population, purpose, or risk change. Use-case approvals expire or reopen under defined conditions.