Information Governance

Information governance encompasses the rules, policies, and procedures that govern how an organization stores and manages its information and data. Information governance software helps firms manage information in line with these policies and applicable data regulations, and supports the effective management of privacy, compliance, investigation, and litigation risk across the organization's data holdings. These platforms typically map and classify data across dispersed sources, including document management systems, email, and cloud applications, to give firms visibility into what information exists, where it resides, and who owns it. Core functionality often includes retention and disposition scheduling, legal hold management that suspends deletion for data under litigation hold, and records management for both electronic and physical files, including tracking outside counsel guideline compliance and managing attorney or matter transfers. Generative and agentic AI are increasingly embedded in this category, automating data classification and tagging, drafting governance policies from existing rules and regulatory requirements, and running risk assessments with less manual configuration. At the same time, AI adoption is itself expanding the governance challenge, since firms must now also account for data generated and processed by AI tools within their existing policies.