AI is in the systems you're testing — and the rules just changed. With the EU AI Act in full enforcement, 250+ U.S. state bills in motion, and audit demands rising, "we tested it" is no longer enough. Regulators, customers, and your own legal team want evidence: who validated what, against which risks, with what controls running when the model shipped. The good news: testers are the natural front line for AI governance. You already own validation, traceability, and the test-evidence chain that auditors will ask for. The opportunity is to make that work load-bearing for AI systems — and to...
Ken Johnston
VP Data, Analytics, and AI
Envorso
Ken Johnston is a Founder of the AiGovOps Foundation, a nonprofit practitioner community advancing AI Governance as Code — the discipline of embedding governance controls into AI systems through engineering rigor, automation, and operational feedback loops rather than policy documents and good intentions. With over 30 years of engineering and data leadership, Ken brings rare depth across the full stack of responsible AI deployment: software quality, cloud platforms, telemetry, observability, and applied AI at scale. As a former GM and Principal Data Science Manager at Microsoft, he helped build foundational systems for A/B experimentation, product telemetry, and the M360 Business Intelligence Graph. He went on to serve as VP of Cloud Platforms and Telematics at Ford and CEO of Autonomic.ai, where he led scalable data-driven innovations in connected vehicle technology. Ken is coauthor of How We Test Software at Microsoft. His upcoming book, The Lean AI Handbook, Pierson summer 2026, captures best practices for operationalizing AI at scale. He currently serves as Advisor and VP of AI at Envorso, helping enterprise clients architect responsible, scalable AI solutions that drive measurable impact.