The New Vendor Due Diligence: Why Your Enterprise Buyer Will Ask About Agentic Governance

InnovationThe New Vendor Due Diligence: Why Your Enterprise Buyer Will Ask About Agentic GovernanceByAjay Pundhir,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 19, 2026, 08:45am EDTAjay Pundhir, senior AI leader & founder of AskAjay.ai. Believes AI should amplify human expertise, not replace it. getty​On March 30, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Executive Order N-5-26, directing state agencies to develop new certification requirements for companies selling AI-enabled products to the state. The drafting just started. Agencies have until late July to submit recommendations; rule-making and RFP language follow through Q4. If you sell agentic AI or buy it from someone who does, your next procurement cycle is being rewritten right now, and most enterprises have not noticed.The rules are not fully written yet. California's order directs agencies to recommend certifications over the next 120 days. The EU's Digital Omnibus proposal, moving through Parliament and Council this spring, could defer Article 6 high-risk obligations by a year or more. But procurement behavior is already running ahead of the regulatory timeline. RFPs in regulated verticals are being rewritten in anticipation. That is the signal enterprise sellers and buyers need to act on now.For 18 months, almost every serious article about AI governance has been written for the buyer's internal program. Board questions, risk registers, red teams—that was the easy half. The harder half arrives in Q3 2026, when regulated buyers start demanding their vendors prove governance as a precondition of purchase. This is the inversion that is not yet priced in.The EU AI Act's Article 6 obligations for high-risk systems were originally scheduled to go live on August 2, 2026. California holds the largest state procurement market in the country...