Conversational AI Governance Beyond Vendor Selection

This article argues that conversational AI has moved from pilot chatbot projects to production systems, which shifts the main decision from vendor selection to operational governance. It explains that as virtual agents scale across banking, healthcare, insurance, and retail, long-term performance depends on ownership, monitoring, documentation, controlled testing, escalation paths, and the ability to respond to model drift. It also notes that many failures emerge gradually through declining intent accuracy, rising escalations, and weaker customer outcomes rather than through a single system break. For technology leaders, the takeaway is that conversational AI should be managed as an operating capability with clear accountability, not as a one-time implementation.