The Importance of Governance in Enterprise Architecture

Governance is one of the main reasons organisations put enterprise architecture (EA) in place. Good governance turns strategy into clear decisions, repeatable processes, and policies teams actually follow. It stops duplication, reduces shadow IT, makes risk visible, and helps leaders scale change with confidence. Without governance, EA is just a diagram; with governance, EA becomes the operating system that enforces rules, measures results, and assigns accountability. One very easy example of how important governance is, is the current trend of Agentic AI.

Agentic AI Overview

Agentic AI is the current hype driving urgent vendor offerings and pilot programs across industries. Gartner defines agentic AI as systems that go beyond prompt‑response generation to possess agency: they perceive context, set goals, select and execute actions autonomously to achieve outcomes, and improve performance over time. Agentic capabilities are being embedded in enterprise software and automation workflows, creating new opportunities and amplifying existing risks in decisioning, data handling, and operational resilience.

How fast Agentic AI is spreading

• Active and planned use: In a 2025 enterprise AI survey, 29% of organisations said they were already using agentic AI and 44% planned to implement it within the next year.

• Market growth: Analysts expect the agentic AI market to grow quickly over the coming decade, with enterprise-focused forecasts reaching into the tens or hundreds of billions by 2034.

• Big bets, big interest: Organizations of all sizes are piloting agents for customer service, IT ops, document workflows, and more because the potential time and cost savings are large.

The Reality Check

Agentic AI promises a lot, but many projects fail to scale. Some reports show very high failure or cancellation rates when governance, data, and integration are weak. One analysis found an estimated 73% of agentic AI projects fail to scale beyond pilots, with successful ones succeeding because they focused on governance, data quality, and change management from the start. Other industry studies point to poor integration, unclear goals, and weak governance as common causes of failure.

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Why SMEs are not Exempt

Many small and medium enterprises think they are “too small” to need formal governance. That is not true. Risk is driven by automation and exposure, not headcount. An agent that makes a wrong decision, exposes customer data, or takes an unauthorized action can cause financial loss, legal trouble, or reputational damage to any sized company. Reports and experts warn that lack of governance is a leading reason agentic pilots fail — and that applies equally to SMEs and large firms.

Simple governance steps you can start today

• Create a small cross‑functional group with business, IT, security, and legal to review agent plans and risks.

• Name an owner for each agent and document what it is allowed to do and when a human must step in.

• Protect data: ensure data quality, track lineage, and apply least‑privilege access for agent inputs and outputs.

• Add runtime controls: identity, rate limits, whitelists, kill switches, and immutable logs for every agent run.

• Pilot with production‑like controls and measure safety and business KPIs before scaling.

• Involve counsel early to map agent actions to legal and regulatory obligations.

Final note

Agentic AI can deliver big gains, but it also increases the speed and reach of change. Governance is not a bureaucratic extra — it’s the practical guardrail that turns promising pilots into reliable, scalable systems. Start small, make rules simple, assign owners, and build trust through measured pilots. When governance sits at the heart of your EA, agents become tools you control, not surprises you have to clean up. Even if you don't have EA in your organization, Governance should be part of your Business Strategy and your Operations.