AWS Partner Network (APN) Blog

AI Governance with Domino Data Lab on AWS: From Policies to Practices

By David Schulman, Sr. Director of Partner Marketing – Domino Data Lab
By James Yi, Sr. AI/ML Partner Solutions Architect – AWS

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As Artificial intelligence (AI) adoption accelerates and the regulatory landscape becomes more complex, the need for robust AI governance frameworks is no longer a distant consideration—it’s a pressing necessity. The stakes are high: businesses must navigate an environment where the risks associated with AI are multiplying, and the regulatory scrutiny is intensifying. Yet, with the right approach, AI governance can do more than just mitigate risks – it can become a catalyst for innovation, driving business value.

At the heart of this transformation is Domino Data Lab, in partnership with AWS. Together, we are bridging the gap between abstract AI policies and actionable, holistic AI governance. Domino’s Enterprise AI Platform on AWS empowers organizations to innovate confidently and responsibly.

The need for effective AI Governance

AI governance is the bedrock of any successful AI strategy. It’s the process of managing risks across the AI and machine learning (ML) lifecycle—ensuring that AI models are not only compliant with regulations but also aligned with business goals. This is particularly crucial in today’s rapidly evolving landscape, where new technologies and regulations are constantly emerging.

The rise of generative AI, for example, introduces unprecedented opportunities—and risks. As these models become more complex, the potential for unintended consequences increases. At the same time, regulations like the EU AI Act are setting new standards that organizations must meet. These can be opportunities for organizations that can adapt quickly and effectively.

However, the path to effective AI governance is fraught with challenges. Organizations often struggle to operationalize policies across diverse systems and technologies. The burden of manual compliance rollout can be overwhelming, and unsophisticated technology can leave organizations exposed to risks they aren’t even aware of. This is where a comprehensive, integrated approach to AI governance becomes essential.

Operationalizing AI Governance with Domino on AWS

Domino Data Lab's AI Governance Framework illustrating five key pillars: Plan, Access, Observe, Control, and Deliver. Each pillar outlines the necessary components for effective AI governance, such as policy management, access control, auditability, policy enforcement, and deployment validation.

Figure 1 – Domino Data Lab’s AI Governance Framework

Domino’s platform seamlessly integrates effective AI governance into daily workflows throughout the AI model lifecycle, enabling teams to adopt best practices for swift AI deployment, while managing risks. By automating policy enforcement, evidence collection, and compliance monitoring within existing AI and machine learning operations (MLOps) processes, Domino empowers enterprises to embed governance into their AI and MLOps without adding unnecessary bureaucracy.

AI Governance in Domino framework consisting of three layers: AI Governance, MLOps, and Foundation. The AI Governance layer includes a Governance Dashboard, Model Lifecycle Management, and Policy Templates. The MLOps layer covers Model Registry, Model Cards, Model Monitoring, and Project Templates. The Foundation layer focuses on Audit, System of Record, and Security features, ensuring comprehensive governance, monitoring, and security in AI operations.

Figure 2 – AI Governance in Domino

Domino Governance transforms high-level responsible AI principles into actionable and enforceable best practices. By automating the collection of compliance evidence and embedding governance policies directly into MLOps workflows, organizations can mitigate AI-related risks while ensuring regulatory adherence.

Key features of Domino AI Governance include:

  • Automated Policy Enforcement: Streamline compliance by embedding policies into AI workflows, ensuring all data, models, and decisions adhere to defined standards without disrupting innovation.
  • Evidence Collection and Auditing: Automatically track and store all necessary compliance artifacts, such as model lineage, performance metrics, and data usage, making it easier to pass audits and regulatory checks.
  • Real-time Monitoring and Alerts: Ensure models remain compliant throughout their lifecycle with continuous monitoring, triggering alerts if policies are violated or models deviate from expected behavior.

Domino AI Governance workflow illustrating how the process is streamlined for different stakeholders, including AI Builders, AI Admins & Reviewers, and Management. The workflow begins with admins setting policies or customizing templates, followed by users answering policy questions. Scripts auto-validate criteria, reviewers get a 360° view of policies and artifacts, and admins customize templates to generate policy adherence evidence. Management oversees a unified dashboard with risk flags. Stakeholders include data scientists, ML engineers, AI developers, security engineers, risk specialists, IT auditors, and risk officers.

Figure 3 – Domino AI Governance streamlines work for all stakeholders

With Domino AI Governance, enterprises can confidently navigate evolving regulatory landscapes such as the EU AI Act, while reducing operational costs and accelerating the deployment of AI innovations. A 360° governance dashboard offers visibility across all projects, allowing for seamless approvals and compliance verification.

Balancing AI Governance with Emerging, Best-in-Breed Technologies

Deployed on AWS, Domino’s platform offers the scalability and security that today’s enterprises demand. It also provides something more: the flexibility to adapt to new technologies and evolving regulations. Domino’s close collaboration with AWS has helped in incorporating the latest in AWS Generative AI technologies.

For example, Domino AI Gateway provides seamless, secure, and controlled access to any hosted large language models (LLMs) –  integrating seamlessly with Amazon Bedrock. This allows governed and secure user access to ensure no data leakage, by using secure API keys and managed API token usage. All endpoint activities are logged for visibility and auditability of all accesses, prompts, and tokens – streamlining secure and governed LLM access to a variety of hosted models available on Amazon Bedrock.

Additionally, we can’t ignore cost governance challenges due to high-performance requirements from deep learning and Generative AI training workloads. Domino also supports the latest AWS Silicon innovations, such as AWS Trainium and AWS Inferentia via the AWS Nueron SDK. This enables Domino customers to experiment with multiple infrastructure types to optimize cost and performance on flexible, self-serve infrastructure – all governed within Domino’s single system of record.

Whether you are dealing with the complexities of generative AI or the intricacies of the EU AI Act, Domino on AWS is future-proof. As your AI initiatives grow and evolve, your governance frameworks, tooling, and processes must also evolve to catch-up with new policies and technologies.

Real-World Use Case: US Navy

The US Navy has embraced cutting-edge technology by adopting Domino on AWS GovCloud (US) to orchestrate their AI models throughout their entire lifecycle. This implementation has yielded remarkable results, revolutionizing their approach to AI. By leveraging Domino’s platform, the US Navy has achieved significant improvements in two critical areas:

  • Model deployment: The time required to deploy AI models has been dramatically reduced to two weeks from six months, allowing for faster implementation of crucial decision-making tools.
  • Model retraining: The process of updating and retraining existing models has been streamlined, ensuring that the Navy’s AI capabilities remain current and effective.

This case study demonstrates how advanced AI platforms can be successfully implemented in even the most demanding and security-conscious environments. Experiences like the US Navy’s showcase the potential for AI to transform operations while maintaining the highest levels of compliance and security. For a more detailed account of this success story, you can refer to Domino’s featured case studies, which provide in-depth insights into the implementation and its outcomes. You can also check out our recent webinar with Carahsoft, Weights & Biases, and Fiddler.ai.

The Business Benefits of AI Governance with Domino on AWS

Domino AI Governance yields substantial benefits for organizations. Primarily, it mitigates AI-related risks by integrating compliance throughout the entire AI lifecycle. This approach not only safeguards against costly non-compliance issues but also expedites the deployment of AI initiatives.

Furthermore, Domino’s platform drives significant cost efficiencies by streamlining governance processes. Organizations can forego investments in custom-built systems or labor-intensive manual compliance checks. Our strategic partnership with AWS enhances these advantages, leveraging their robust infrastructure to amplify Domino’s advanced governance capabilities.

By combining Domino’s expertise in AI governance with AWS’s scalable and secure cloud environment, we offer a comprehensive framework that enables organizations to confidently navigate the complex landscape of AI development and deployment while maintaining regulatory compliance and operational efficiency.

In an era of rapid technological advancement and shifting regulatory landscapes, AI governance must be dynamic and adaptable. Domino provides organizations with a resilient foundation to meet these evolving challenges head-on. Our platform is engineered to anticipate and accommodate change, ensuring that your AI governance framework remains not only relevant but also proactive in the face of emerging technologies and regulations.

Conclusion

In the rapidly evolving world of AI, robust governance is essential—not just for compliance but for innovation and business value. Domino Data Lab, in partnership with AWS, offers an integrated, automated solution that supports both. As you scale your AI efforts, Domino on AWS provides the governance framework you need to succeed. Please explore our offerings on the AWS Marketplace to see how Domino can help you future-proof your AI initiatives.

Attend our webinar or check out the on-demand version to learn about our integrated solutions for current governance challenges and future organizational empowerment. Come join us on October 22, 2024, for a talk on “Mitigating AI risks: Governance strategies for GenAI and new threats” featuring Diya Wynn, Responsible AI Lead at AWS. Finally, learn more about Domino’s Governance capabilities.

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