Engaged AI Governance: Addressing the Last Mile Challenge Through Internal Expert Collaboration

TL;DR

This paper explores how internal expert collaboration can effectively translate EU AI governance requirements into practical software development strategies within an AI startup, addressing the 'Last Mile' challenge.

Contribution

It introduces a legal-text-to-action pipeline and empirical insights into team-level implementation of AI governance requirements.

Findings

Practitioners perceive regulatory requirements as convergence, existing practice, or disconnection.

Prioritization is driven by end-user needs and development goals, not just compliance.

Expert collaboration helps transform governance from external imposition to shared ownership.

Abstract

Under the EU AI Act, translating AI governance requirements into software development practice remains challenging. While AI governance frameworks exist at industry and organizational levels, empirical evidence of team-level implementation is scarce. We address this "Last Mile" Challenge through insider action research embedded within an AI startup. We present a legal-text-to-action pipeline that translates EU AI Act requirements into actionable strategies through internal expert collaboration by extracting requirements from legal text, engaging practitioners in assessment and ideation, and prioritizing implementation through collective evaluation. Our analysis reveals three patterns in how practitioners perceive regulatory requirements: convergence (compliance aligns with development priorities), existing practice (current work already satisfies requirements), and disconnection (requirements perceived as administrative overhead). Based on these patterns, we discuss when governance might be treated genuinely or performatively. Practitioners prioritize requirements that serve end-users or their own development needs, but view verification-oriented requirements as box-ticking exercises. This distinction suggests a translation challenge: regulatory requirements risk superficial treatment unless practitioners understand how compliance serves system quality and user protection. Expert collaboration offers a practical mechanism for transforming governance from external imposition to shared ownership and making previously invisible governance work visible and collective.