Field notes, not frameworks. Observe before you govern. Most policies are written. Few are designed. Now booking Q3 engagements. Speaking: Stockholm · AI Governance Summit. Field notes, not frameworks. Observe before you govern. Most policies are written. Few are designed. Now booking Q3 engagements. Speaking: Stockholm · AI Governance Summit.
Chapter · 00 / Opening
Available · Interim & advisory · Q3 2026

Most AI governance fails because it's written, not designed.

AINODIS helps organisations deploy AI responsibly - starting with how people actually work, not how we assume they do. Observation first. Policy last.

Practice
AI governance by design
Format
Advisory · Interim · Workshops
Founder
Sébastien Fabre
Based
Europe · Remote worldwide
§ 01 - The observation

Every week, another organisation announces an AI initiative. Most will stall in pilot.

Essay

Some will cause harm they didn't anticipate. A handful will get it right - and the difference is almost never the technology. It's whether someone took the time to observe, map, and govern before deploying. That's what AINODIS does.

- §01 / The premise
§ 02 - The method

Three moves, in order. The order matters.

01 / Observe

Watch the real workflow.

Shadow the people doing the work. Map what's actually decided, escalated, and quietly overridden - before any policy is drafted.

  • Contextual inquiry
  • Shadowing & diary studies
  • Decision-path mapping
02 / Map

Surface the risk surface.

Translate observations into a concrete risk & decision map: where AI touches consequential decisions, where accountability sits, where it doesn't.

  • Decision ownership matrix
  • Failure-mode inventory
  • Harm & exposure modelling
03 / Govern

Design the guardrails.

Policies, review gates, escalation paths - written as product, not policy. Tested against how people actually behave under pressure.

  • Gate & review design
  • Tabletop & red-team exercises
  • EU AI Act / ISO 42001 alignment
§ 03 - What this looks like in practice

Three ways to work together. Scoped to your stage.

01 / Advisory

Fractional AI governance lead.

Ongoing retainer for leadership teams who need a partner in the room - reviewing pilots, pressure-testing decisions, and keeping governance lived, not laminated.

From 2 days / month Quarterly retainer
02 / Interim

Interim Head of AI Governance.

Full-time embedded leadership while you build the permanent function. Set up the operating model, hire your successor, leave the structure standing.

3-9 month engagement Embedded
03 / Field research

Observation sprint & workshop.

A two-week intensive: contextual inquiry with a specific team, a risk map you can act on, and a workshop that turns it into concrete next moves.

2-week sprint Fixed fee
§ 04 - Selected talks & credibility

Where this thinking has been pressure-tested.

  • 2026 · May Designing AI governance for the work people actually do Stockholm ↗
  • 2026 · Feb Beyond policy: observation as a governance discipline Frankfurt ↗
  • 2025 · Nov Why most AI pilots stall - and what governance has to do with it Copenhagen ↗
  • 2025 · Sep Governance that survives contact with reality London ↗
Sébastien Fabre speaking at UXDX conference

Most AI policies I've read describe a company that doesn't exist. AINODIS starts from the one that does.

Head of Risk, European financial services group
§ 05 - The framework

Observe · Map · Govern. Read the working paper.

A 28-page working paper: the premise, the three moves, the failure modes to watch for, and the artefacts produced at each stage. Free to read. Cite it if it's useful.

# ainodis/framework.yaml
premise: "Governance follows observation, not precedes it."
───────────────────────────────────────────────
moves:
  - id: 01
    name: observe
    artefact: field-notes.md
  - id: 02
    name: map
    artefact: risk-surface.svg
  - id: 03
    name: govern
    artefact: operating-model.pdf
───────────────────────────────────────────────
anti-patterns:
  - "Policy without fieldwork"
  - "Governance as marketing"
  - "Owning the risk register, not the risk"
§ 06 - Start
Sébastien Fabre

Before you deploy, let's observe.

A 45-minute working session, no slides. Bring the system you're about to deploy - or the one that's already quietly making decisions. We'll map the first risk surface together.