Policy enforcement has moved to the forefront. Let’s break down why this is the case and how policies can help you improve governance as you stay in control of operations.First, let’s examine your current production environment. Compliance, governance, and security aligned with specific standards represent an ongoing and essential need. In fact, some standards come with costly daily fines for each day an environment is out of compliance. Furthermore, standards constantly evolve, with new rules requiring more rigorous actions. For example, Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificates now have shorter lifespans, impacting standards that require valid certificates.If you have an enterprise-scale environment, compliance demand expands in both scale and scope. Automation can help reduce this burden by providing continuous visibility into the state of the environment measured by those standards. Note that some audits require specific tools and audit trails to collect evidence, and I'll show how to get compliant and stay that way.Now, let’s add AI into this picture. You may need to demonstrate data lineage, protect data and privacy, document a complete inventory of your AI systems, provide audit trails of every action your AI systems have taken, demonstrate control over AI systems, and so on. Automation across your existing solutions and new AI capabilities is the way to manage it all at scale—with speed, consistency, and accuracy. This is why organizations are turning to policy as code.What is policy as code?Policy as code uses defined policies to evaluate technology code throughout the entire release process to:Apply compliance, security, and internal standards consistently to code as it moves through each lifecycle step from the start (for example, checking into the repository) to running in productionControl what automation can do—for example, who (or what AI) can operate on which set of inventory and tasks, and at what level of authorityCapture audit trails of every action taken by automationEmploy controls like role-based access control (RBAC)Protect sensitive data and systems using secrets managementRed Hat Ansible Automation Platform includes a policy enforcement capability that controls what automation can do. When you combine this policy enforcement feature with Ansible Automation Platform’s robust automation foundation and its event-driven automation capability, you have a solid foundation for achieving visible governance, compliance, and an enhanced security posture. Especially in the age of AI, policy controls enable Ansible Automation Platform to be central to managing, governing, and controlling environments.This covers the automation aspect, but defining the policies to enforce is equally important. Think of it this way: Policy as code is like a car, and the policy library is like the roads. You need both to get to where you're going.So, what inflection points are appropriate for policy as code to assess code, environment, or configuration? Figure 1 provides an overview of common touchpoints with policy as code.