AI Governance Decision Rights Matrix | RAIC

QUICK ANSWER

An AI governance decision rights matrix defines which roles have authority to approve, reject, escalate, delegate or accept risk for specific AI decisions, along with the limits of that authority. It is a short, binding table — not a responsibility chart — and it is the artifact that turns an AI policy into something a person can act on and an auditor can test.

WHY ORGANIZATIONS NEED ONE

An AI governance committee without explicit authority produces ambiguity, and ambiguity produces escalation. Every undecided item climbs to the busiest executive in the room, decisions stall behind calendars, and the record afterwards shows a name but not the authority that name held. A decision rights matrix answers the operational question underneath the policy: what does authority actually look like when you encode it into governance?

THE DECISIONS TO COVER

Start with the decisions that carry consequence. Ten cover most programs.

Decision	Typical authority question
Approve new AI use case	Who can authorize deployment?
Approve high-risk use	Does the business owner have sufficient authority?
Accept residual risk	Which risk level can each executive accept?
Grant exception	Who can deviate from an AI policy or control?
Approve sensitive data use	Who owns data-use authority?
Approve model or vendor	Procurement, technology, risk or governance?
Pause an AI system	Who has stop-work authority?
Emergency approval	Who holds temporary delegated authority?
Change a system materially	Does the original approval remain valid?
Retire a system	Who can terminate the AI use case?

If you cannot name a role for a row, that row is your next governance finding.

AN EXAMPLE MATRIX

Codes: R recommends, A approves or accepts, C consulted, I informed, — no role.

Decision	Business Owner	AI Governance	CISO / Risk	Executive	Board
Low-risk use case	A	C	C	—	—
Medium-risk use case	R	A	C	—	—
High-risk use case	R	C	R	A	—
Critical residual risk	C	R	R	A	I
Temporary exception	R	A	C	C	—
Permanent policy waiver	C	R	R	A	I
Emergency suspension	R	A	A	I	—

Two rules make the table work. Only one role holds A on a row, and the role that recommends is never the role that approves. Copy the shape, then argue about your own rows — the argument is the value.

RACI IS NOT ENOUGH

RACI tells you who is responsible, accountable, consulted and informed. It describes participation in work. It does not define legal or organizational authority to commit the organization to a risk.

Accountability is not authority: A business owner can be accountable for an outcome and still lack the standing to accept a critical residual risk on the company's behalf.

RACI has no thresholds: Authority is conditional — up to a risk level, a spend limit, a data class, a time window. RACI carries no limits at all.

RACI has no expiry: Delegated and emergency authority must end on a date. A responsibility chart has no concept of an end date.

RACI produces no evidence: A matrix on a slide is not a record. Authority becomes provable only when each decision stores the approver, the authority they held, and the date.

Add the limits RACI omits: the risk level each role may accept, the data classes each may clear, how long a delegation lasts, and what happens when the holder is unavailable.

HOW TO BUILD YOURS IN FIVE STEPS

1. List the decisions, not the roles. Begin with the ten rows above and cut what does not apply to you.

2. Set the thresholds. Write the residual risk level, data class and spend limit at which each decision changes hands. Thresholds do the routing work.

3. Assign one approver per row. Name a role, never a person. People change jobs; the matrix should not.

4. Bound delegation and emergency authority. Every delegation names a substitute, a cap and an end date, with a retrospective review once it closes.

5. Encode it, then generate the routes. A matrix that lives in a document depends on whoever remembers to consult it. When the approval route is generated from the matrix, the right approver is selected by the rule rather than recalled by a person.

HOW RAIC SOLVES THESE PROBLEMS

Every problem this guide raises has a mechanism behind it in RAIC's Governance Operations & Decision Rights module.

Problem from this guide	How RAIC solves it
A matrix that lives in a document nobody consults	The authority model is stored as configuration, and approval routes are generated from it for AI use cases, systems, controls, policies, risks and exceptions
Authority recalled by a person instead of applied by a rule	The route picks the approver from the thresholds you set — residual risk level, record type and ownership — rather than from memory
RACI has no thresholds	Authority is bounded by residual risk level and record type, so a low-risk approval stops with the owner while a critical residual risk climbs to the role entitled to accept it
RACI has no expiry	Exceptions and waivers are time-bounded with an owner and an expiry date that surfaces before it lapses; delegated authority ends on its own date
Two approvers on one row	Council voting with quorum settles group decisions, so shared authority becomes a recorded vote instead of an unresolved row
Authority changes mid-decision	In-flight items re-route when the authority model or the owner changes, instead of sitting with a role that no longer holds the decision
No stop-work authority	Suspension is a first-class decision type with its own route, so a pause does not wait for a meeting
RACI produces no evidence	The decision register records approvals and refusals with the approver, the authority they held and the date
Nobody revisits the matrix	Changes to the authority model are versioned, and the review cycle sits on the governance calendar alongside policy reviews
Proving it to an outsider	Councils, decisions, exceptions and the authority model export together in one continuity pack, with expiring share links for auditors and customers

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT IS ENCODED

In RAIC, Governance Operations & Decision Rights turns the matrix into working software: approval routes generated from the authority model for AI use cases, systems, controls, policies, risks and exceptions; council voting with quorum; in-flight re-routing when authority changes; and a decision register that records approvals and refusals with the authority behind each. Exports carry councils, decisions, exceptions and the authority model in one pack, so the matrix is evidence rather than an intention.

COMMON MISTAKES

Two approvers on one row: Shared authority is no authority. Split the row instead.

Authority granted to a committee that never meets: Match authority to cadence, or decisions queue.

No stop-work authority: If nobody can pause an AI system without a meeting, the system cannot be paused.

A matrix nobody revisits: Review it on the same cycle as the AI policy, and again after any reorganization.

NEXT STEPS

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How to Build an AI Governance Decision Rights Matrix