Abstract
The executive guide to the architecture and operating decisions that move enterprise AI into production. It is written for the sponsor who has to authorize the next investment and for the leaders who will carry the accountability for it, in business terms, with the engineering detail the architects will need.
It sets out five capability areas (data products, business meaning, knowledge, access and orchestration, trust and control), the four-part system that connects them, and a worked claims workflow that shows where each decision lands. Key chapters close with an executive implication: the decision they ask you to make.
It ends with a 90-day starting pattern for the first governed capability, a ten-question diagnostic you can run against your own program, and a one-page worksheet for scoping the first capability with your delivery team. It is free to download, with no form.
In the paper
Three passages, as published
Why demos mislead
A demonstration usually answers a narrow question under favorable conditions.
Executive implication
Assign a business authority to settle meaning. Engineering can encode a decision. It can’t supply the business mandate to make one.
First release
Keep the first release read-only unless a separately justified command capability is essential.
Next step
Discuss this paper against your own program.
A free sixty-minute working session with Richard on your top gaps. You leave with a one-page summary within three business days, and three next questions.