AI Centre of Excellence Series

Your organisation’s AI systems make millions of decisions whilst you read this sentence. Each decision—every credit approval, pricing adjustment, or customer recommendation—carries risk and opportunity that ultimately rests with your Board. Traditional governance cannot match this velocity. An AI Centre of Excellence provides the infrastructure to coordinate multi-speed AI adoption, build capabilities systematically, and transform ungoverned risk into strategic advantage.

This eight-week series provides a practical roadmap for establishing your AI CoE using frameworks proven with organisations worldwide. Each article builds on the previous, moving from understanding why you need an AI CoE through to future-proofing your governance as AI technology evolves. The series integrates the AI Stages of Adoption for maturity recognition, Five Pillars for capability building, and Well-Advised for value creation into a comprehensive governance approach.

Articles in This Series

Week 1: Why Boards Need an AI Centre of Excellence

With the vast majority of AI pilots failing to reach production and shadow AI creating unmanaged risks across organisations, establishing an AI Centre of Excellence has become essential board infrastructure. This article explores how an AI CoE provides the governance framework needed to coordinate multi-speed AI adoption and transform ungoverned AI risk into strategic competitive advantage.

Read Week 1 →

Week 2: The Essential Functions of the Five Pillars

Every AI Centre of Excellence needs a clear operational mandate. This article identifies eighteen essential functions that provide comprehensive AI governance without creating bureaucratic overload. These functions, organised around the Five Pillars framework, ensure your AI CoE can effectively govern multi-speed adoption whilst building sustainable transformation capabilities.

Read Week 2 →

Week 3: Mapping Your Multi-Speed AI Reality

Before you can build effective governance, you need to understand where you actually are — not where you think you are, or where you’d like to be. This article introduces the AI CoE Simulator, a practical assessment tool that operationalises the AISA framework for real-world use, revealing your organisation’s true multi-speed AI landscape.

Read Week 3 →

Week 4: Designing Structure for Multi-Speed Governance

How do you structure an AI CoE that can effectively govern initiatives ranging from shadow experiments to enterprise transformations - all happening simultaneously? This article addresses the practical challenge of designing organisational structure capable of managing AI’s inherent multi-speed reality.

Read Week 4 →

Week 5: Building Capabilities Using the Five Pillars

How do you build the capabilities that transform governance frameworks into business results? The answer lies not in technology deployment but in systematic capability development across the Five Pillars. This article provides a 90-day implementation sprint with maturity assessment tools and practical templates.

Read Week 5 →

Week 6: Launching Your First 90 Days

With structure and capabilities defined, this article focuses on launching your AI CoE with Well-Advised value focus. Learn how to select initiatives that build capabilities whilst delivering value, create momentum through early wins, and establish patterns for sustainable success.

Read Week 6 →

Week 7: Scaling Beyond Pilots

Most AI pilots never reach production. This article addresses how to leverage your AI CoE’s integrated governance to scale beyond pilots to enterprise transformation, turning isolated successes into systematic organisational capability.

Read Week 7 →

Week 8: Future-Proofing Your AI CoE

The AI landscape will look radically different in eighteen months. Multi-agent systems, quantum-AI hybrids, and federated AI networks will challenge every governance framework you’ve carefully constructed. This final article tackles how to build adaptive capacity that thrives on change rather than being disrupted by it.

Read Week 8 →