The cost of inaction

AI without governance is a cost center, not a growth engine

The rush to deploy AI has created a wave of urgency. But that urgency can quickly turn to regret when data isn’t ready.

When unstructured data is left ungoverned, the downstream impact is immediate and expensive. Models trained on outdated, biased or incomplete content produce flawed results—results that can’t be trusted, can’t be explained and ultimately can’t be used. In practical terms, that means AI investments fail to deliver on their promise.

Instead of accelerating innovation, you’re wasting cycles—and budget—trying to compensate for poor inputs.

One major indicator of this ROI erosion is search accuracy. When unstructured content lacks tagging or classification, search tools become unreliable. Accuracy drops and teams lose confidence in what they find. That’s not just frustrating. It’s dangerous in high-stakes environments like healthcare, finance and the public sector.

The high price of low visibility

The risks don’t end there. Regulatory pressure is mounting. New laws like the EU AI Act, GDPR and CCPA require organizations to explain and document how personal or sensitive data is being used in AI systems. If unstructured content isn’t classified properly, it’s nearly impossible to prove compliance or detect violations until it’s too late.

The result? Fines. Lawsuits. Reputational damage. And in some cases, a complete shutdown of critical AI workflows until governance gaps are closed.

Then there’s the operational drag.

Without automation, metadata still gets added manually, if at all. That means large teams waste time on classification, tagging and version control. Project timelines stretch. Time-to-market slows. And the cost of producing new AI use cases goes up.

But the biggest cost is the one that’s hardest to measure: the insights you never see.

When knowledge stays buried in forgotten folders and disconnected systems, innovation stalls. Analysts miss trends. Product teams fly blind. Strategy gets built on incomplete information. The organization moves slower. And the knowledge that could guide it forward is locked away in unstructured data.

One major indicator of ROI erosion is search accuracy

When unstructured content lacks tagging or classification, search tools become unreliable. Accuracy drops and teams lose confidence in what they find. It’s frustrating and—in high-stakes environments like healthcare, finance and public services—it’s potentially dangerous.