Who's Accountable When AI Sets the Price? Pricing Governance in the Age of AI with Steven Forth

Steven Forth, Managing Partner at Ibbaka and co-creator of Value IQ, joins Mark Stiving to tackle a topic most pricing teams are avoiding: pricing governance in an AI-driven world.

This episode explores who owns pricing decisions when AI is involved, how companies should govern data and models, and why pricing leaders must step into a broader leadership role or risk having governance imposed on them by others.

If AI is touching your pricing process in any way, this conversation will change how you think about responsibility, risk, and trust.

Why You Have to Check Out This Episode:

• Understand what pricing governance actually means and why poor governance shows up as finger-pointing between sales, pricing, and finance.
• Learn the new governance questions AI introduces around data usage, bias, accountability, and mistakes.
• Discover why pricing leaders must own AI governance or risk losing control of pricing decisions altogether.

"The big issue for me is how, as pricing people, do we develop the knowledge that we need to be accountable for AI pricing governance? It's not something any of us were taught."

– Steven Forth

Topics Covered:

01:51 - Pricing Governance and Accountability. What pricing governance really means and why accountability breaks down when roles are unclear.

05:04 - Pricing and Customer Value Alignment. Why pricing teams sit at the center of aligning sales, product, finance, and customer value.

08:01 - AI Challenges in Pricing Governance. How AI introduces new risks around data usage, ownership, and responsibility in pricing decisions.

12:45 - AI Pricing Governance Challenges. Who is accountable when AI makes mistakes and how strict rules can slow innovation.

16:35 - AI Governance in Pricing. Why pricing leaders must take ownership of AI governance or risk losing control to other functions.

22:13 - AI Transparency in Pricing. The importance of explainable pricing models and why transparency matters to both sellers and buyers.

26:49 - AI in the Buying Process. How buyers are using AI to evaluate vendors and why transparency will shape future pricing outcomes.

28:08 - Connecting on LinkedIn. How to continue the conversation and connect with Steven Forth directly.

Key Takeaways:

"Governance is an area of pricing that we don't spend enough time thinking about and talking about because it's not sexy and it does not immediately tie to results." – Steven Forth

"If pricing leaders don't take ownership of AI governance, someone else will." – Steven Forth

"It's the fact that the AIs are not deterministic that allows them to be, dare I say it, creative and to find new things." – Steven Forth

"AI generally does a better job of explaining how it got to its answers than most humans can." – Steven Forth

People & Resources Mentioned:

• Tom Nagle – Referenced as Steven's mentor and a foundational thinker in pricing governance
• Michael Mansard – Mentioned for prior work and thinking on pricing governance
• Tim Smith – Referenced for contributions to pricing governance discussions
• Karen Chiang - Co-founder of Ibbaka
• Stephan Liozu – Mentioned for advocating the Chief Value Officer role
• Anthropic – Research on bias and AI self-evaluation
• OpenAI – Data usage and model governance considerations
• Deal Desks – Scaling pricing guidance with AI support

Connect with Steven Forth:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/
• Email: steven@ibbaka.com

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving
• Email: mark@impactpricing.com