AI is a multidisciplinary challenge, not just a tech or data problem. Assigning governance to a single department creates a 'hot potato' scenario where no one takes full ownership. Success requires a dedicated, cross-functional executive team that genuinely engages with the program's goals on a regular basis.

Effective AI governance starts with an "AI Council" composed of passionate users, IT, legal, and operations staff. Unlike a top-down "Center of Excellence" that dictates rules, this council's primary role is to create enabling policies and guidelines that empower grassroots adoption and safe experimentation across the organization.

Pritzker rejects the Trump-Sacks approach of gathering AI companies and letting them self-police. He says every company acts in its own self-interest, so government is needed to protect privacy and safety, just as it is needed for other collective-action problems. He doesn't claim government is smarter.

Pritzker opposes term limits and age caps, saying voters should choose between a 75-year-old and a 45-year-old. He still argues younger officials bring a modern view of AI and privacy and a more aggressive stance toward corporations invading people's lives. He frames it as a generational shift, not a rule.

Instead of reacting to unsanctioned tool usage, forward-thinking organizations create formal AI councils. These cross-functional groups (risk, privacy, IT, business lines) establish a proactive process for dialogue and evaluation, addressing governance issues before tools become deeply embedded.

Pritzker says he starts by asking which decisions only he can make, then forces debate before choosing. He describes himself as 90% sure he's right but 10% likely to be dead wrong, so he hires people stronger than him in areas he doesn't know. He wants input first.

The appointment of an AI czar follows a historical US pattern of creating such roles during crises like WWI or the oil crisis. It's a mechanism to bypass slow government bureaucracies for fast-moving industries, signaling that the government views AI with the same urgency as a national emergency requiring swift, coordinated action.

Pritzker replaced 26 direct reports with four deputy governors plus a chief of staff and general counsel. He grouped health and human services under one deputy to force departments to talk, because he says agencies build walls and fear losing control or jobs when they collaborate.

The debate on AI regulator qualifications is misplaced. Rather than seeking futurists, the government can train technically competent individuals to enforce safety protocols, mirroring how the Navy trains young personnel to manage nuclear submarine reactors. This separates the job of day-to-day safety from high-level threat prediction.