AI Fluency, Smart Adoption and Governance for Leaders

AI Governance, Ethics and Responsible AI

Building the Oversight Structures That Let Your Organisation Adopt AI Confidently and Defensibly

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Platform:
Online
In-class
Revised and Updated: 08 October 2026
Date Venue Duration
26 - 30 October 2026 Sandton, Gauteng 5 Days
07 - 11 December 2026 Sandton, Gauteng 5 Days

Course Introduction

As organisations adopt AI more widely, governing its use responsibly has become a board-level concern, not just a technical one. This course builds practical frameworks for AI governance, ethical use, data privacy, and risk management. It equips participants to set up the policies and oversight structures that let their organisation adopt AI confidently and defensibly.

 

The regulatory landscape is moving fast, and the dates keep shifting. The EU AI Act applies in phases: its prohibitions and AI literacy duties have applied since February 2025, and obligations for general-purpose AI models since August 2025. In 2026 the EU’s Digital Omnibus postponed the high-risk obligations to 2 December 2027 (for the Annex III use cases, such as hiring and credit scoring) and 2 August 2028 (for AI built into regulated products). The Act’s heaviest penalties, up to €35 million or 7% of global annual turnover, apply to prohibited practices; other breaches carry lower tiers. South African organisations that sell into, or use AI outputs in, the EU can fall within its reach.

 

Alongside it sit ISO/IEC 42001, the first certifiable international standard for an AI management system, and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, a widely used voluntary benchmark. The AI Governance, Ethics and Responsible AI course treats these as one layered governance architecture rather than separate compliance exercises, and anchors them in South African law, including POPIA. It is case-study driven, using real governance failures and near-misses as discussion anchors, and participants leave with a draft AI governance policy framework built for their own organisation.

Course Objectives

This AI Governance, Ethics and Responsible AI course equips you to design, implement, and defend AI governance frameworks that meet global regulatory expectations while remaining proportionate to your organisation’s scale and risk appetite. By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

  • Apply leading AI governance frameworks to design organisational AI policy
  • Navigate the global AI regulatory landscape, including the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001, and the NIST AI Risk Management Framework
  • Identify and assess ethical risks in AI deployment, including bias, transparency, and accountability
  • Apply data privacy and protection principles specific to AI systems and training data, including POPIA
  • Design oversight structures and approval processes for AI initiatives
  • Apply a risk-tiered approach to AI oversight, including ongoing monitoring and incident response
  • Govern generative AI, third-party AI tools, and the procurement of AI systems
  • Build a practical AI governance policy appropriate to their organisation’s scale and risk appetite, and prepare for evolving regulation without over-engineering governance for smaller-scale AI use

Course Benefits

  • Regulatory Clarity in a Moving Landscape: Understand how the EU AI Act, ISO/IEC 42001, and the NIST AI RMF fit together, instead of treating each as a separate compliance exercise.
  • Defensible AI Adoption: Build oversight structures that let your organisation adopt AI confidently, not fearfully.
  • Real Risk Recognition: Identify bias, transparency, and accountability risks before they become incidents or headlines.
  • Privacy-Ready Governance: Apply data privacy principles specific to AI systems and training data, not generic data protection theory.
  • A Policy You Can Actually Use: Leave with a draft AI governance policy tailored to your organisation’s scale and risk appetite.

Who should attend?

  • Risk, Compliance, and Legal Professionals Responsible for AI-Related Policy
  • Senior Managers and Executives Sponsoring or Overseeing AI Initiatives
  • IT Governance Professionals, Information Officers, and Data Protection Officers
  • Internal Auditors Who Will Assure AI Controls
  • Board and Audit Committee Members Seeking AI Governance Literacy
Finance Courses

Training Methodology

Our diverse instructional approaches ensure effective learning:

– Lectures & Presentations: Engage with expert-driven, stimulating content.
– Course Material: Access well-crafted supporting resources.
– Group Work: Collaborate on discussions and case studies for practical insights.
– Workshops & Role-Play: Participate in immersive, scenario-based activities.
– Practical Application: Focus on applying theoretical knowledge in real situations.
– Post-Training Support: Receive extensive support after training for skill implementation.

Training Outline

Day 1 — Foundations and the Regulatory Landscape
Module 1: Foundations of AI Governance
  • Why AI requires distinct oversight from traditional IT governance
  • The board-level shift: AI governance as a strategic, not purely technical, concern
  • Core principles of responsible AI: fairness, accountability, transparency, and safety
  • Building the business case for proactive AI governance
  • Building an inventory of the AI systems in use, including shadow AI
  • Practical Exercise: Map your organisation's current AI governance gaps against the core principles
Module 2: The Global AI Regulatory Landscape
  • The EU AI Act: risk-based obligations, phased timeline, the 2026 Digital Omnibus postponements, and penalty tiers
  • When the EU AI Act reaches South African organisations
  • ISO/IEC 42001 as a certifiable AI management system standard
  • The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (Govern, Map, Measure, Manage) and its Generative AI Profile
  • Using the three frameworks together as a layered governance architecture, not competing alternatives
  • Practical Exercise: Map which frameworks apply to your organisation's AI use, and identify overlapping requirements

Day 2 — Ethical Risk and Data Privacy
Module 3: Ethical Risks in AI
  • Identifying bias in AI systems and its business and reputational consequences
  • Fairness considerations across different AI use cases
  • Transparency and explainability: what stakeholders are entitled to know
  • Accountability structures when AI systems cause harm or error
  • Human oversight: when a human in the loop is meaningful and when it is a formality
  • Practical Exercise: Assess a sample AI use case for bias, fairness, and transparency risks
Module 4: Data Privacy and Protection in AI Systems
  • Privacy considerations specific to training data and model inputs
  • Consent and data subject rights in AI-driven decision-making, including POPIA's limits on solely automated decisions
  • Cross-border data transfer considerations for AI systems
  • Common data privacy failures in AI deployments and how to avoid them
  • Practical Exercise: Review a sample AI system for data privacy compliance gaps

Day 3 — Oversight Structures, Risk Tiering, and Monitoring
Module 5: Designing AI Oversight Structures
  • Structuring approval processes for new AI initiatives
  • Defining roles and responsibilities across risk, compliance, and business functions
  • Setting escalation pathways for high-risk AI decisions
  • Embedding AI oversight into existing governance structures rather than building from scratch
  • Practical Exercise: Design an approval workflow for a new AI initiative at your organisation
Module 6: Risk Tiering and Ongoing Monitoring
  • Applying a risk-based tiering approach to AI use cases
  • Setting monitoring requirements proportional to risk tier
  • Post-deployment monitoring and incident reporting practices
  • Keeping governance proportionate as AI use scales across the organisation
  • Practical Exercise: Build a risk tiering matrix and assign monitoring requirements to a set of sample AI use cases

Day 4 — Generative AI, Third Parties, and South African Requirements
Module 7: Governing Generative AI and Third-Party AI
  • Generative AI risks: hallucination, data leakage, intellectual property, and misuse
  • Acceptable-use rules for staff, and managing shadow AI
  • Due diligence on AI vendors and embedded AI in software you already use
  • Contract clauses for AI procurement: data use, audit rights, incident notification, and liability
  • Providing assurance over AI controls: the role of internal audit
  • Practical Exercise: Assess a vendor's AI offering against a due-diligence checklist
Module 8: Governance Lens: Relevant South African Requirements
  • POPIA (Act 4 of 2013): lawful and secure processing of personal information used for prompting, training, decisions, and retrieval; data minimisation, retention, and human approval rules
  • Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020: unauthorised access, data misuse, and harmful disclosure; access boundaries, incident escalation, and logging
  • ECTA (Act 25 of 2002): integrity of digital records and transactions; verification, version control, sign-off, and evidence retention for AI-assisted outputs
  • Employment, consumer, and sector regulation: extra fairness and accountability checks for high-impact uses in hiring, lending, insurance, procurement, and public services
  • Governance codes: how AI oversight fits the board's duties under King V
  • The national AI policy position: the 2026 draft policy was withdrawn and is not law; monitoring developments without treating draft material as mandatory
  • Practical Exercise: Apply the requirements proportionately to a selected use case, and agree where legal review gates are needed
  • This module is an implementation lens, not legal advice. Sector-specific obligations must still be confirmed by the organisation.

Day 5 — Capstone: Building Your AI Governance Policy
Module 9: Building an AI Governance Policy — Capstone Exercise
  • Structuring a complete AI governance policy document
  • Tailoring policy scope and rigour to organisational size and risk appetite
  • Presenting a governance policy for leadership sign-off
  • Planning for policy review and updates as regulation and technology evolve
  • Practical Exercise: Draft an AI governance policy framework tailored to your own organisation, present it for peer review, and agree your first 90-day actions
Closing Session: Next Steps
  • Reviewing the draft policies and feedback
  • Course evaluation and presentation of certificates of attendance

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FAQs – AI Governance, Ethics and Responsible AI

Master AI governance, ethics, and responsible AI practices covering AI risk, accountability, transparency, fairness, compliance, security, and ethical decision-making.

What is covered in the AI Governance, Ethics and Responsible AI course?
The course covers AI governance frameworks, ethical AI principles, responsible AI adoption, AI risk management, data governance, privacy, bias, transparency, accountability and regulatory considerations.
Who should attend the AI Governance, Ethics and Responsible AI training?
The training is suitable for executives, managers, governance and compliance professionals, risk teams, technology leaders, legal professionals, data specialists, AI project teams and decision-makers involved in AI adoption.
What are the key principles of responsible AI covered in the course?
Participants explore principles including fairness, transparency, accountability, explainability, privacy, human oversight, safety and responsible management of AI throughout its lifecycle.
Does the course cover AI risk management and governance frameworks?
Yes. Participants learn how to identify and assess AI risks and establish governance structures, policies, roles, controls and oversight mechanisms to support responsible AI implementation.
Does the training address AI ethics, bias and data privacy?
Yes. The course examines ethical decision-making, algorithmic bias, data quality, privacy, cybersecurity, transparency and accountability to help organisations manage the risks associated with AI systems.
Are practical activities included in the AI Governance and Responsible AI training?
Yes. The training includes practical exercises, case studies, risk assessments, governance activities and applied scenarios that help participants develop approaches for implementing responsible AI within their organisations.

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