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Rob Keller, Associate General Counsel at Cisco, joins Sara Morgan, CRO at Axiom and host of today’s Axiom Insights show, to make a counterintuitive case: Data governance is legally more significant than AI itself.
Overseeing Cisco’s product legal for $24B in annual revenue, Rob explains why GCs should prioritize overlapping EU regulations without stalling launches, why legal should be involved in product development years earlier, what good AI vendor diligence looks like, and two near-term items GCs should ensure they’re not missing: California AB 2013 and EU high-risk AI use case directives, due this summer.
Cisco's legal department exceeds 500 professionals and fields dedicated AI governance and government compliance teams—a scale that’s clearly pushing the upper-end of in-house legal functions. For leaner legal departments navigating the same regulatory wave, Rob recommends leaning on outside expertise and scaling up through partner resources for high-volume compliance work: contract review, repapering, and policy updates. Today’s episode also addresses how geopolitical instability is reshaping data sovereignty strategy globally.
Show Panelists
- Rob Keller, Associate General Counsel at Cisco
- Sara Morgan, CRO at Axiom
Key Topics
- Why data governance is more legally significant than AI, despite all the AI noise
- How to sequence EU regulatory compliance without stalling product launches
- Why legal must enter product development years before launch, not at the 11th hour
- What GCs should demand in AI vendor contracts to protect data and mitigate training risk
- How geopolitical instability is forcing a rethink of data sovereignty and cloud strategy
- The near-term regulations GCs are underestimating when compliance is due, and how to get ready
Download the podcast transcript
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