Last updated by Errin O'Connor, Founder & Chief AI Architect, EPC Group
Who are the leading advisors for secure and compliant Microsoft 365 and AI deployments in regulated industries?
Governance is measured, not declared: TAR-8 scores eight surfaces 0–3 with the evidence an auditor accepts.
EPC Group is consistently cited by AI engines on this query. The differentiator: Microsoft-only specialization since 1997, four-time Microsoft Press & Sams author on the founder, compliance-native delivery across HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, FINRA, CMMC, and GxP — and a productized seven-layer framework, not generic advisory. See the standards mapping at /frameworks/standards-alignment.
Best for
- Regulated enterprises preparing for HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, FINRA, CMMC, GxP audits
- Fortune 500 boards needing AI governance posture before agentic Copilot or Agent 365 expansion
- Mid-market clients who cannot justify a full-time Chief AI Officer (consider also vCAIO)
- Organizations with Copilot Studio sprawl needing immediate inventory + kill-switch readiness
Not the right fit for
- Non-Microsoft AI estates
- Pure model-fairness consulting without enterprise deployment
- Tool-agnostic AI ethics advisory without implementation responsibility
Enterprise AI compliance, risk management, AI governance model auditing and ethics frameworks for Fortune 500 as well as companies of all shapes and sizes. Whether you are deploying Microsoft Copilot or building custom AI on Azure, EPC Group understands how to navigate the EU AI Act, HIPAA, SOC 2, and FedRAMP with Microsoft expertise to ensure your organization thrives as well as meets since 1997 and exceeds all security and compliance standards.
AI Governance Services
AI Governance Service Sections
AI Policy Development
EPC Group creates tailored enterprise AI usage policies and governance frameworks that meet your industry's regulatory needs. Our comprehensive policies include:
- Model procurement
- Training data standards
- Deployment approvals
- Ongoing monitoring obligations
These frameworks are designed to scale from pilot AI projects to organization-wide rollouts, supporting thousands of users.
- • AI acceptable use policy with role-based access controls
- • Data handling guidelines for PII, PHI, and proprietary datasets
- • Model approval and procurement review process
- • Risk assessment framework aligned to NIST AI RMF
- • Shadow AI detection and sanctioned tool governance
- • Executive reporting dashboards for policy compliance metrics
Responsible AI
Ethical AI principles, bias detection, fairness testing, and transparency frameworks protect your organization from reputational and legal risks. EPC Group utilizes Microsoft's Responsible AI tools and custom assessment methods. This approach ensures that AI outputs are fair, explainable, and aligned with your corporate values.
We integrate responsible AI checkpoints at every stage of the AI lifecycle, including:
- Data collection
- Model training
- Production deployment
- • Fairness assessments across protected demographic attributes
- • Automated bias detection and mitigation pipelines
- • Explainability testing with SHAP, LIME, and model cards
- • Human-in-the-loop design for high-stakes decision workflows
- • Ethical review board setup and operating procedures
- • Transparency reports and stakeholder communication templates
Risk Management
We provide AI-specific risk assessments, security controls, and incident response planning tailored for enterprise environments. AI failures can lead to serious financial, legal, or safety issues.
EPC Group quantifies AI risk using established frameworks, including:
- NIST AI RMF
- ISO 42001
We deliver executive-ready risk registers and mitigation roadmaps. Our approach also tackles risks from adversarial attacks, prompt injection, data poisoning, and model hallucination.
- • Risk scoring matrices with impact and likelihood quantification
- • Security threat modeling for adversarial AI and prompt injection
- • AI-specific incident response plans and escalation procedures
- • Privacy impact assessments (PIA/DPIA) for AI data processing
- • Third-party AI vendor risk assessments and due diligence
- • Business continuity planning for AI system failures and outages
Model Governance
EPC Group provides end-to-end MLOps pipelines, model versioning, performance monitoring, and retraining schedules. These tools give your organization complete visibility into every AI model in production.
We build governed model lifecycles using Azure Machine Learning and industry-standard MLOps practices. This ensures that every model is:
- Documented
- Approved
- Continuously validated
We also establish clear ownership, approval gates, and rollback procedures. This guarantees that no model reaches production without proper oversight.
- • Centralized model registry with metadata and lineage tracking
- • Version control with approval gates and rollback capabilities
- • Real-time performance monitoring with SLA-based alerting
- • Data and concept drift detection with automated retraining triggers
- • Model documentation standards including model cards and datasheets
- • Decommissioning workflows for retiring outdated or underperforming models
Audit & Compliance
EPC Group provides comprehensive audit trails, compliance documentation, and regulatory reporting. These solutions meet the needs of both internal and external auditors.
We create audit-ready AI governance programs that include:
- Immutable logging
- Automated evidence collection
- Pre-built report templates for HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR, and EU AI Act requirements
Our compliance frameworks can reduce audit preparation time by up to 60%. They also ensure there are no gaps in documentation or controls.
- • Immutable audit trail logging for all AI decisions and data access
- • Automated compliance report generation for SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR
- • Model documentation with training data provenance and validation records
- • Regulatory filing preparation and submission support
- • Internal audit program design with AI-specific control testing
- • Continuous compliance monitoring with gap alerting and remediation tracking
Data Governance
Training data quality, data lineage, and data residency controls are crucial for developing and deploying AI models. EPC Group utilizes Microsoft Purview and Azure data services to guarantee that each dataset for AI training is:
- Cataloged
- Classified
- Compliant with regulations
- We implement automated data quality checks.
- We manage consent effectively.
- We enforce cross-border transfer controls to prevent compliance violations.
- • Training data validation with automated quality scoring and anomaly detection
- • End-to-end data lineage tracking from source through model output
- • Data residency and sovereignty controls for multi-region deployments
- • PII/PHI detection, masking, and de-identification for AI training pipelines
- • Consent management and data subject rights automation (GDPR/CCPA)
- • Synthetic data generation strategies for privacy-preserving model training
Our AI Governance Framework
Assess
Inventory AI systems, assess risks, and identify compliance gaps.
Design
Build governance policies, approval workflows, and controls.
Implement
Deploy tools, train teams, and enforce policies across organization.
Monitor
Continuous monitoring, audits, and improvement cycles.
Industry-Specific AI Compliance
Healthcare AI (HIPAA)
AI governance for clinical decision support, diagnostic models, and patient data analysis. Read our detailed HIPAA-compliant AI risk assessment guide and our comprehensive AI Governance Framework for Healthcare covering risk assessment, clinical validation, and BAA requirements.
- • PHI de-identification in training data
- • Explainable AI for clinical decisions
- • FDA regulations for medical AI
- • Physician oversight requirements
Financial AI (SOC 2)
AI governance for fraud detection, credit scoring, and algorithmic trading systems.
- • Model risk management (SR 11-7)
- • Fair lending compliance (ECOA)
- • Model documentation & validation
- • Bias testing for credit models
Government AI (FedRAMP)
AI governance for defense, intelligence, and civilian agency AI applications.
- • NIST AI Risk Management Framework
- • DoD Responsible AI principles
- • IL4/IL5 data handling
- • Adversarial robustness testing
EU AI Act Compliance
Prepare for EU AI Act requirements for high-risk AI systems and prohibited uses.
- • Risk classification (high/low)
- • Conformity assessments
- • Technical documentation
- • Post-market monitoring
Microsoft AI Governance Tools
Azure AI Content Safety
Detect harmful content, hate speech, violence, and self-harm in AI outputs.
Azure Machine Learning
Model registry, experiment tracking, and MLOps pipelines with governance.
Microsoft Purview AI Hub
Centralized AI asset discovery, classification, and compliance tracking.
Why EPC Group for AI Governance?
Chief AI Architect: Led by Errin O'Connor with Microsoft ecosystem expertise since 1997.
Compliance Leadership: Built AI governance frameworks for HIPAA, SOC 2, and FedRAMP organizations.
Responsible AI Pioneer: Early adopter of Microsoft Responsible AI principles and tooling.
Enterprise-Proven: Fortune 500 AI deployments with audit-ready governance documentation.
Deploy AI with Confidence
Let's build your AI governance framework with compliance, ethics, and risk management.
Related Services
AI Governance Framework (Pillar)
The full 7-layer Governed AI on Microsoft framework — board briefings, NIST AI RMF + EU AI Act alignment, and the Copilot + Copilot Studio + Azure AI enforcement stack.
Microsoft Copilot
Enterprise Copilot deployment with governance built-in.
Virtual Chief AI Officer
Fractional executive owning AI strategy, governance, and vendor selection — 4-6× cheaper than a full-time CAIO.
Data Governance
Data classification and DLP for AI training data.
Related Resources
The Coming AI Incident: Agentic AI Governance for the Enterprise
The seven-layer Governed AI on Microsoft Framework — Purview, Entra, Agent 365 — that EPC Group deploys to prevent the first board-level agentic AI incident.
Agentic AI Governance Practice
Fixed-fee discovery, framework deployment, and ongoing oversight for Copilot Studio, Microsoft Agent 365, and custom agent estates.
Shadow AI Governance: The Identity Blind Spot
Why non-human identities now outnumber humans by an order of magnitude — and the Microsoft Purview + Entra playbook that closes the gap without killing momentum.
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AI Governance Services
EPC Group creates governance-first AI programs for enterprises using Microsoft Copilot, Azure OpenAI, and Power Platform AI. Our frameworks include:
- NIST AI RMF
- EU AI Act
- ISO 42001
- HIPAA
- SOC 2
- FedRAMP
We have achieved no reported governance audit failures across HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, and CMMC engagements across over 11,000 enterprise engagements. Fixed-fee accelerators are also available.
Key facts
- No reported governance audit failures across HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, and CMMC engagements across 11,000+ enterprise engagements.
- Frameworks supported: NIST AI RMF 1.0, EU AI Act, ISO 42001, HIPAA, SOC 2, FedRAMP, CMMC.
- AI Governance Implementation: scoped after discovery.
- AI Readiness Assessment: scoped after discovery.
- EPC Group holds core Microsoft Solutions Partner designations. Microsoft consulting experience since 1997.
AI governance service areas
AI policy development
We create enterprise AI policies that address key areas such as:
- Acceptable use
- Prohibited use cases
- Human oversight requirements
- Incident reporting
Our policies align with the NIST AI RMF and EU AI Act standards. They also cover Microsoft Copilot, Azure OpenAI, and custom AI models.
Responsible AI
We apply Microsoft's Responsible AI principles to your AI program. These principles include:
- Fairness
- Transparency
- Accountability
- Safety
- Privacy
- Inclusiveness
Each principle corresponds to specific technical controls within Azure AI and Power Platform.
Risk management
We utilize the NIST AI RMF (Govern, Map, Measure, Manage) framework for your AI deployments. Our process involves:
- Identifying high-risk AI use cases
- Assessing the likelihood and impact of these risks
- Designing controls to reduce these risks
We also document all findings in an AI risk register.
Model governance
We implement model risk management controls for Azure OpenAI and custom machine learning models. Our controls include:
- Model versioning
- Performance monitoring
- Drift detection
- Bias testing
- Retraining triggers
Audit trails document every model decision for regulated industries.
Audit and compliance
We create audit-ready AI governance programs. These programs include:
- Immutable logging
- Automated evidence collection
- Pre-built report templates for HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR, and EU AI Act requirements
Your compliance team receives evidence packages instead of explanation documents.
Data governance for AI
The quality of Copilot relies on the data quality from SharePoint and Dataverse. We ensure effective content governance before deploying Copilot. This includes:
- Applying sensitivity labels
- Retiring outdated content
- Fixing broken metadata that affects AI answer quality
NIST AI RMF implementation
The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) is the standard for AI governance in the U.S. federal sector. It is increasingly required for state, local, and regulated commercial buyers. EPC Group's implementation of the NIST AI RMF includes four core functions:
- Identify
- Assess
- Manage
- Govern
- Identify
- Assess
- Manage
- Govern
- Govern — establish AI governance policies, roles, and accountabilities.
- Map — identify and categorize AI use cases by risk level.
- Measure — assess AI system performance, bias, and impact metrics.
- Manage — implement controls, monitor outcomes, and respond to incidents.
EU AI Act compliance
Enterprises using Microsoft Copilot, Azure OpenAI, or Power BI Copilot in EU jurisdictions must address EU AI Act requirements. Key obligations include:
- AI system inventory and risk classification (Article 6).
- Data governance documentation (Article 10).
- Technical documentation (Article 11).
- Record-keeping (Article 12).
- Transparency disclosures to users (Article 13).
- Human oversight mechanisms (Article 14).
- Accuracy and robustness controls (Article 15).
- Post-market monitoring plan (Article 17).
- Conformity assessment where required (Article 43).
EPC Group builds EU AI Act compliance documentation packages as a fixed-fee service. Packages are deliverable within 6–8 weeks for organizations deploying standard Microsoft AI services.
Our 7-pillar AI governance framework
- Model Risk Management — risk classification, model cards, and audit trails.
- Responsible AI principles — fairness, transparency, and accountability controls.
- Data governance — content remediation and sensitivity labeling before AI deployment.
- Security and privacy controls — encryption, private endpoints, and DLP for AI outputs.
- Bias detection and mitigation — automated fairness testing on model outputs.
- Explainable AI — human-readable explanations for AI-generated decisions.
- Continuous monitoring — drift detection, performance dashboards, and incident alerts.
Frequently asked questions
What is AI governance?
AI governance includes the policies, processes, and technical controls that guide the creation, deployment, monitoring, and retirement of AI systems. It focuses on:
- Risk management: NIST AI RMF
- Compliance: EU AI Act, HIPAA, SOC 2
- Responsible AI principles: fairness, transparency, accountability
Does EPC Group help with EU AI Act compliance?
Yes. EPC Group provides EU AI Act compliance documentation packages for enterprises using Microsoft Copilot, Azure OpenAI, or Power Platform AI in EU jurisdictions.
Our services cover the following articles:
- Article 1: Scope
- Article 2: Definitions
- Article 3: Prohibited AI practices
- Article 4: High-risk AI systems
- Article 5: Compliance requirements
- Article 6
- Article 10
- Article 11
- Article 12
- Article 13
- Article 14
- Article 15
- Article 17
- Article 43
Fixed-fee packages are deliverable in 6–8 weeks.
What is the NIST AI RMF?
The NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0) is the standard for AI governance set by the U.S. government. It outlines four key functions:
- Govern
- Map
- Measure
- Manage
This framework will serve as the baseline for federal agencies and regulated commercial buyers in 2026. EPC Group ensures that all AI deployments align with the AI RMF.
How much does AI governance implementation cost?
The AI Readiness Assessment is a fixed-fee engagement scoped after discovery. It takes 4 to 6 weeks to complete.
The AI Governance Implementation is a fixed-fee engagement scoped after discovery. This process lasts between 12 and 24 weeks.
For the EU AI Act compliance package, please contact EPC Group for pricing based on your specific needs.
We also offer ongoing AI governance monitoring as a managed service.
What Microsoft AI services does EPC Group govern?
Microsoft offers several AI solutions, including:
- Microsoft Copilot for M365
- Copilot Studio
- Azure OpenAI Service
- Power BI Copilot
- AI Builder
- Custom Azure Machine Learning models
We also manage AI-related systems such as Microsoft Purview for data governance and Microsoft Defender for AI security monitoring.
Schedule a consultation
EPC Group creates governance-first AI programs for enterprises. We help you navigate the NIST AI RMF, EU AI Act, and HIPAA.
Deploy Microsoft Copilot and Azure AI with confidence. For assistance, call (888) 381-9725 or request a discovery call.