FAQ · The Basics
AI GOVERNANCE, PLAINLY
The terms we use, what they mean, and where we stand on the companies selling AI.
What is AI governance?
AI governance lays out the foundational rules, the dos and don'ts, of what AI is allowed to do inside an organization. The result is an organization inherently governed by AI: quicker decisions, more agility, and a self-iterating, self-evolving, structured network of information processing.
In practice that means usage policies, guardrails, records of what the AI did, and a named person accountable for every AI-assisted decision.
What does “Owner's Representative for AI” mean?
On a building project, the owner's rep protects the owner against everyone selling into the job. We play that role for AI. The other side of the table is the companies selling AI software, and our obligation is to you, not to any vendor or tool.
Engagements are proposed in stages, so you decide at each step whether to go further. The aim throughout is a firm that can govern its own AI.
How do you pronounce Aiyarise?
Eye-yah-rise. The name carries the founder's daughter's name, Aiya (eye-yah), followed by rise.
Do you sell AI software, or get paid to recommend it?
We are not a reseller and we carry no product quotas. Our recommendations are based on fit for your firm's governance and operations, not on who sells what.
We do build systems for clients, such as a knowledge base for your firm, and we will always tell you what is ours, what belongs to someone else, and any commercial relationship we have with a product before you decide.
Which AI models do you work with?
We work across the leading labs, including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and DeepSeek, and we watch new releases continuously. What we build is designed not to depend on any one vendor's model, so you can move to a better one when it ships.
Why not just go straight to OpenAI, Microsoft or Google?
You can, and many firms do buy directly. Each of those companies is built to grow its own platform. Our job is your firm's operation across all of them: deciding what is worth buying, setting the rules for how it's used, and connecting it to the way your firm actually works.
We already use Copilot, Gemini or ChatGPT. Do we have to start over?
No. You don't have to start over. Most of our work makes the tools you already pay for more useful by giving them your firm's own knowledge and rules, so there is no new software for your team to learn.
What does an AI system from you look like day to day?
Usually it's the AI tool your team already uses, connected to your firm's own documents, templates and standards. People ask in plain language and get drafts built from your real work. A person reviews anything that goes out.
How do you protect us from vendor lock-in?
By keeping your knowledge separate from any one model. Your firm's information is structured once, in plain formats any model can read, with your policies sitting alongside it. The model connects to it and can be swapped without rebuilding. A tool you can't leave is a liability on the balance sheet.
What is shadow AI?
Staff using AI tools the firm has never approved, often with project or client information pasted in. It's common and usually well meant. Governance replaces it with approved tools and clear rules, so people can use AI without putting the firm's data at risk.
What is tool sprawl?
Overlapping AI subscriptions picked up team by team, with nobody owning the whole. It costs money twice: in duplicate licences, and in information scattered across tools that don't talk to each other.
ASK US DIRECTLY
If your question isn't here, bring it to a discovery call. It's a conversation, not a pitch, and there is no commitment.