Laurie Shrout

AI Regulation

California AI Bills: What Compliance Teams Need to Map

Three California AI bills focus on companion chatbot safety, youth-facing engagement features, and workplace surveillance. See what compliance teams should map before the measures become law.

AI Governance

AI Human Oversight Controls: What Proves They Actually Work?

A coding-agent experiment raises a governance question: if human approval is an AI control, what evidence shows the control actually works?

AI Governance

AI Chatbot Child Safety Regulation: What Proves Safeguards Work?

Meta’s settlement, Colorado’s Chatbot Safety Act, and the FTC’s AI companion study show youth-safety governance moving toward product controls, testing, monitoring, and evidence of performance—without creating one national safety standard.

Regulatory Compliance

FTC Personalized Pricing: Can You Explain Why a Price Changed?

The FTC’s proposed enforcement statement explains how Section 5 may apply when personal data shapes consumer prices—and why disclosure alone may not resolve every concern.

AI Governance

FDA AI Medical Devices: What Authorization Actually Proves

A PLOS review found only 3 of 1,357 FDA-authorized AI medical devices had patient-centered outcome evaluations. Here’s what FDA status proves—and what evidence still needs separate review.

AI Governance

Continuous Authorization to Operate: Who Owns the Risk Decision?

CSET’s ATO reform proposals push automation into evidence, risk determinations, and some continued authorization decisions—within defined guardrails, tolerances, and escalation rules.

Cybersecurity Risk

Water Utility OT Cybersecurity: Who Owns the Control Path?

FBI findings on attacks against internet-exposed water-sector PLCs raise a broader governance issue: utilities need to verify external OT access, current configurations, manual fallback, and third-party-provided network paths.

Data Privacy

McDonald’s App Customer Data: When Records Become Predictions

WIRED’s McDonald’s disclosure shows that customer records can include predictions about future visits, spending, behavior, and attrition—raising a key governance question: where are those predictions used?

Consumer Finance

Walmart Sales Slowdown: What It Really Says About Consumers

Walmart’s sales slowdown is not a clean measure of consumer demand. Fed reports show trade-down behavior and discretionary pullbacks even as the Beige Book said consumer spending edged up.

AI Governance

OpenAI Astra: What Its Critical Cyber Threshold Means

OpenAI has tightened safeguards around Astra while its Critical cyber classification remains unresolved. The episode shows how capability uncertainty can trigger operational controls before a final determination.

AI Governance

AI Hiring Discrimination: What Harper v. SiriusXM Actually Shows

Harper alleges AI-assisted hiring discrimination at SiriusXM, but the case has not established that ZIP codes, schools, or other alleged proxies caused his rejections.

Employer Health Benefits

ICHRA Adoption 2026: Growth Without a Group Plan Exodus

ICHRA adoption is growing amid rising employer health costs, but group insurance still dominates. Here’s what the 2026 data show—and what employers should evaluate before treating ICHRA as a group-plan alternative.