When I started deploying autonomous AI agents in production, I quickly learned that governance wasn’t just about compliance — it was a matter of survival. Today, autonomous scripts, smart automations, and conversational assistants make real decisions, act on data, and integrate into production environments. As an engineer and product leader, I’ve often faced one dominant tension: how to deploy AI agents rapidly without sacrificing compliance, security, or ethical accountability.
That’s the problem. Here’s the fix. In this article, I’ll share why AI governance is no longer a choice, how to design it into the development process, and what a “governance-first” mindset looks like when done right.