The AI Governance Crisis: Why 72% of Enterprises are at Risk
Decision makers at 72% of organizations claim to have two or more AI platforms that they identify as their 'primary' layer, according to a survey of 40 enterprise companies conducted by VentureBeat last month, revealing real gaps in security and control. For enterprise management and technical leaders, and especially security leaders, these multiple AI platforms extend the attack surfaces of most enterprises at a time when AI-driven attacks have become increasingly potent.
The multiple platforms — which include offerings from hyperscaler or AI labs like Microsoft Azure, Google, OpenAI or Anthropic, or big application companies like Epic, Workday or ServiceNow — reflect a state of sprawl that has emerged as these big software providers rush to offer their own AI to their enterprise customers. Those customers, in their own rush to scale AI, are finding they aren’t building a singular strategy — in fact they may be building a collection of contradictions.
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The strategic paradox faced by many enterprises is that they are building around their vendors, rather than having a clear strategy of their own. For example, take the strategic paradox faced by Mass General Brigham (MGB) hospital system, which has 90,000 employees and is the largest employer in Massachusetts. The hospital system last year had to shut down an uncontrolled number of internal proof of concepts that had sprouted up as employees had gotten carried away with AI projects.
Instead, the company decided it was better to wait for the software giants it already uses to deliver on their AI roadmaps. Since these companies have so many resources, and were making AI a top priority themselves, it made no sense for MGB to try to build its own AI layer that would be duplicative. Yet, even then, MGB’s team has been forced to build workarounds, where those companies haven’t done enough.
The contradiction goes even further. These software vendors used by MGB — which also include Epic, Workday and ServiceNow — are all now building agents for their AI, all operating differently. So MGB has to invest in building a “control plane that coordinates and orchestrates all of these agents.”
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The Security Irony: The Fox Guarding the Hen House
We are seeing this platform creep in our data as well. The most jarring finding in our Q1 data is what we call the 'Security Irony': the fact that the providers most responsible for creating enterprise AI risk are the same ones enterprises are using to manage it. Respondents said the top selection criterion for AI orchestration platforms was “security and permissions generally” (37.1%), beating out other criteria like cost, flexibility, control and ease of development.
Yet, the market is choosing convenience over sovereignty. According to our survey, 26% of enterprises in February were using OpenAI as their primary security solution — the very same provider whose models create the risks they are trying to secure. It’s not clear whether enterprises are choosing OpenAI as a security solution, or just relying on its built-in security features offered by Microsoft Azure.
The bottom line is that visibility and integration are only half the battle. In a high-stakes industry like healthcare, a legitimate control plane must also offer a hard-stop capability. We need a 'big red button,' a kill switch that can stop any AI process immediately. Without that, don’t put anything in the operational setting.
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