Hosts: Srini Annamaraju & David Royle.

“The AI bubble is the wrong fear.”

The real threat sits inside your own walls: shadow AI you don’t see, boards that confuse risk aversion with risk management, and leaders trying to govern a technology they don’t actually understand.

We unpack why mid-market boards are exposed, how shadow AI reveals the truth about how your org really works, and what an actually realistic 12-month AI plan looks like.

And yes—why people, not models, are now the biggest AI risk vector.

The conversation revolves around a recent paper that David authored, a link to the post that has the details is here.

What we cover

1. Bubble noise vs fundamentals - Valuations swing wildly, but enterprise AI maturity rises daily. We explain why it has nothing to do with the technology reshaping your org.
2. Shadow AI as diagnosis - It’s not a tooling problem but a symptom of mismatched expectations.
3. Boards: from passive listeners to owners - Why literacy is step zero, and why chairs need to move fast.
4. Risk aversion trap - The boards that “get it” flip from “should we?” to “how quickly, safely, and visibly can we?”
5. 90-day governance playbook - Inventory → Validate → Govern.
6. Top-down vs bottom-up AI - How grassroots use cases and board-led operating models collide.
7. 12-month reality check - You won’t be AI-first in a year. But you can be an AI-literate, AI-safe, AI-enabled organisation in 12 months.
8. Explainability anxiety - Why boards demand transparency from AI they never asked of spreadsheets or humans.
9. The uncomfortable truth - The biggest AI risk isn’t the model. It’s your people.
10. Evals preview - Why audits, trust contracts, drift checks, and forward-deployed evaluators will soon be board-level concerns.

Chapters

• AI bubble vs enterprise fundamentals
• Shadow AI as a symptom
• Boards falling behind
• Risk aversion vs risk management
• 90-day governance plan
• A realistic 12-month AI horizon
• The real AI risk: people
• Intro to enterprise evals

Takeaways

• Shadow AI is a mirror - reveals gaps in culture, process, and leadership direction, not tooling.
• Boards must lead, not observe - Active literacy and ownership are key.
• Governance is the stabiliser. Inventories, validations, guardrails, and oversight reduce drift & exposure.
• Explainability is contextual. Set boundaries, not magic expectations.
• People are the attack surface. Don't miss non-malicious misuse.
• 12 months = foundations. Literacy, safety, and one high-value use case per function. That’s the win.

Who it’s for

Board members, CEOs, COOs, CIOs, CROs, and mid-market operators needing a grounded, real-world view of AI risk, governance, and organisational maturity.

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