As AI capabilities rapidly evolve, organizations face critical decisions about how to integrate these technologies effectively. This talk shares practical insights from launching and leading AI guilds at Digitec Galaxus, exploring the organizational challenges that emerge when multiple teams adopt AI simultaneously, and how this impacts the user.‍

‍We'll examine three key governance questions that determine whether AI initiatives succeed or create technical debt:‍

‍Consistency in User Experience: AI doesn't just process data - it communicates with users. What happens when you put AI in front of hundreds of thousands of queries per day? We'll look at examples of where this can help and hurt the user, and how we manage this at scale.

‍Centralization vs. Decentralization: How do you balance innovation speed with cost control? Should model access, budgets, and reporting be managed centrally or distributed across teams? We'll discuss the trade-offs we encountered and what we learned about finding the right balance.

‍Standardization Dilemmas: When different teams build AI-powered products, should they share common infrastructure - like embedding models and orchestration tools, or maintain independence? Through real examples, we'll explore when standardization accelerates development and when it becomes a bottleneck.

This session is designed for technical leads, product managers, and anyone navigating the messy reality of implementing AI in established organizations. You'll leave with frameworks for making governance decisions and an understanding of the organizational patterns that help AI initiatives scale successfully.