Var Shankar: AI Governance for Smaller Organizations

The Road to Accountable AI · May 7, 2026 · 29m · transcript

Var Shankar makes the case that most AI governance guidance is built for large, sophisticated, multifunctional global enterprises — and that this leaves out the roughly half of American workers employed at organizations with fewer than 500 people. Through the Council on AI Governance, the nonprofit he leads with Alexis Cook, he is trying to fill that gap with open, current, and pragmatic resources, including an AI Governance Playbook organized around four focus areas: strategy, risk and compliance, workforce literacy, and operational management. He tells Kevin that the case for AI governance…