Firefish Launches its AI Council and Introduces a New Set of AI Governance Principles

Firefish announces the launch of its AI Council and a new set of AI Governance Principles. This launch reinforces Firefish’s position at the forefront of safe, responsible, and client-centred AI innovation, spearheaded by its award-winning QualifyAI partnership.

As AI becomes embedded across research, insight, and decision-making, Firefish believes the primary challenge is no longer slow adoption, but “overconfidence” in unvalidated outputs. The new framework is designed to position rigorous governance not as a barrier to innovation, but as the foundation that enables sustainable competitive advantage – prioritising the integrity, transparency, and human oversight required for high-stakes strategic work.

At the core of Firefish’s approach are five foundational principles:

• Human oversight: AI serves to augment, rather than replace, the human judgment required to interpret complex cultural data.
• Accuracy and accountability: all tools are risk-assessed, continuously monitored, and rigorously validated and fact-checked.
• Transparency and explainability: AI-generated outputs are clearly identifiable, with full visibility into how conclusions are reached.
• Data ethics and privacy: strict compliance with data protection regulation, lawful data use, anonymisation, and proactive bias management.
• Fairness and non-discrimination: systems are designed and tested to eliminate bias across protected characteristics.

Richard Owen, Head of Innovation and Technology at Firefish, stated: “We don’t see AI governance as control or fear, we see it as ongoing sense-making in a world of uncertainty. You cannot predict every downstream impact of AI, but you can build an organisation that learns quickly, notices harm early, and adapts. Strong governance is what makes innovation sustainable.”

Jem Fawcus, CEO of the Firefish Group, adds: “In a market full of bold claims and implied inevitability, our job is to be the client advocate. We want our clients to benefit from the advantages AI brings, but they must have the confidence that their decisions are built on a grounded, culturally informed, and safe context.” 

This framework is part of an ongoing commitment to industry-wide standards. Clients and peers are invited to join the discussion on best practices and emerging challenges in the responsible use of AI.