The Weakest Part Of Your Sovereignty Plan Is Probably The AI

Picture a bank that has done everything its sovereignty policy asks for. Its customer data sits in a datacenter inside the country. A locally owned provider runs the systems, and the bank’s own employees handle daily operations. Each of those steps took time and money, and each one does what it promised.

Then the bank starts using an AI model to make the first pass through loan applications. It also deploys an AI agent that plans and carries out a series of next steps. For every application, the agent pulls records from several internal systems and an outside credit bureau. The bank hasn’t asked whether the model’s maker could be forced to switch it off, or mapped where the agent sends applicant data.

(Note: Of the companies mentioned in this article, my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy, has commercial relationships with AWS, Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.)

To me, “sovereignty” means control over who can reach your data and systems — and who could switch off the systems and AI models you rely on. I’d argue the control doesn’t average out across a setup, because anyone trying to reach your data or shut off your service only needs one way in or one choke point. By that measure, the bank’s protection now rests on the two elements it has probably checked least. The bank rents the model from its maker, so one command from that maker could halt loan decisions within hours. The agent also sends applicant details to the credit bureau with every application. Each loan decision depends in part on what the bureau says, so what happens if the bureau pulls the plug?

Keeping the bank’s data inside the country doesn’t keep it out of reach. A government can order a company under its jurisdiction to hand over data that company controls, even when the data sits in another country. So I’d treat every company holding the bank’s data as a possible way in, including the companies that run the model and the credit checks.