Short-form video governance for IT leaders

Short-form video is moving inside the enterprise

Organizations are deploying short-form video across multiple departments and functions.

Among the common use cases are the following:

• Employee communications. Organizations are using short-form video for company updates and announcements.
• Onboarding. Human resource departments are creating short-form video onboarding content and training modules.
• Knowledge management. Within organizations, short-form video is often used to capture legacy knowledge from retiring employees.
• Support workflows. Field service technicians are recording quick how-to clips for colleagues as well as video libraries of common troubleshooting scenarios.
• Executive briefs. Instead of impersonal emails, executives use short-form video to record brief updates, maintaining a connection with their distributed workforce.
• Promotional and marketing. Short-form video also continues to be widely used in the development of promotional marketing content.

As short-form video has moved inside the enterprise, IT's role is evolving from passive enablement to active platform selection and integration. Tech teams and the CIOs that lead them must evaluate secure, compliant video platforms that integrate with existing collaboration tools while meeting enterprise security standards.

New governance challenges

As is the case with almost any technology used within an organization, there needs to be some form of governance to ensure that it doesn't represent a risk and is used within guidelines. Without governance, short-form video can potentially represent a type of shadow IT risk.

The ease of creation and publication for short-form videos can be a challenge for governance.

"Short-form videos are often fast-paced and focused on grabbing the audience's attention," Himanshu Agarwal, co-founder of Zenius.co, a remote recruitment company, said. "This gives very little time to provide necessary disclaimers on videos, especially for highly regulated industries like healthcare, finance and transportation."

There is also a clear need to establish governance to help combat the risks of misinformation. Proper controls are needed to provide a measure of trust and authenticity for an organization's short-form video content.

"The surge of AI-generated misinformation and videos has made it harder for organizations to manage trust and authenticity on online platforms," Valence Howden, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, said. "Privacy regulations have also grown with a broader reach, causing additional pressure for organizations to regulate how information is captured and shared."

Organizations need clear guidelines about what content is appropriate for internal sharing, who can create and distribute video and what approval processes apply to different content types. Unlike traditional documents that flow through established review cycles, video content often bypasses these controls.

Rights management becomes complex when employees create videos that feature colleagues, customers or proprietary information. Organizations need approval workflows that balance the speed and spontaneity that make video effective with the control required to manage risk. Content lifecycle management must address the duration of video accessibility, the party responsible for maintaining them and when they should be archived or deleted.

Accessibility and metadata standards pose technical governance challenges. Organizations must ensure captions and transcripts for accessibility compliance, implement consistent tagging for discoverability and maintain metadata that enables content management at scale.

"It is essential to clearly identify accountability for creating, approving and sharing videos," Howden said.

Data security and compliance

As part of the overall governance of short-form video, there are also a series of data security and compliance concerns that CIOs should consider.

Storage and retention

Video files consume more resources and space from the IT infrastructure than traditional documents. They require extensive storage capacity and present complex encryption challenges for data both at rest and in transit.

Industry-specific compliance requirements

Different sectors face unique video compliance challenges:

• Healthcare. Must ensure HIPAA compliance when videos feature patient information or clinical discussions.
• Financial services. An organization can face regulatory scrutiny when video content includes material nonpublic information.
• Technology companies. Tech vendors must protect intellectual property in videos about product development or strategic initiatives.

Audit trails

For compliance purposes, it is also necessary to track video content throughout its lifecycle. Organizations need to understand who created the video, who approved it, who accessed it and when modifications occurred.

"Since videos can live forever on the internet, think about retention and auditability. Can you prove what was posted, when, and by whom?" Monica Rothbaum, chief operating officer and senior attorney at J&Y Law, said.

Data privacy

Data privacy and risk of data breaches represent another concern.

"I've noticed an increasing number of brands falling for data privacy risks when employees share workplace content online," Agarwal said. "Information that mentions tools, security checks or workflows can open businesses to questioning or cyber threats. For example, a simple screenshot of a funny email can inadvertently share insights into company information and policies."

Howden emphasized that CIOs face significant risks related to intellectual property and the exposure of proprietary data. "The biggest problem is the organization's personal information being accidentally or intentionally uploaded, especially around IP and data," he said. "Reputational harm resulting from videos being misused or taken out of context and interpreted differently than what the organization would typically accept."

Trust and authenticity risks

As short-form video becomes more widely used and increasingly easy to create, organizations also face trust and authenticity risks that need to be understood and addressed.

Deepfake and AI-generated content threats

The barrier to creating convincing deepfake videos has effectively disappeared. Within enterprise environments, this capability creates several critical vulnerabilities. Deepfakes could compromise trust in executive communications, generate fabricated evidence of policy violations or influence operational decisions by manipulating video content.

Agarwal pointed to several cases of medical trainees posting trending workplace content that was misinterpreted as insensitive, causing reputational damage.

Misinformation and internal trust implications

Content authenticity risks extend beyond intentional fraud. Rothbaum identifies rushed production cycles as a primary concern. "The biggest risk I see is quick turnarounds leading to lapses in content review, which could lead to copyright or employee privacy violations," she said. "One misstep on TikTok can turn into a discovery exhibit in litigation."

This exposure applies equally to internal video content that may surface in employment disputes or regulatory investigations. Even unintentional errors in rapidly produced video communications can spread throughout the organization, creating confusion about policies, procedures or strategic direction.

Verification frameworks and content authenticity markers

Addressing these risks requires implementing technical controls that verify the authenticity of content and detect manipulation. Leading enterprises are evaluating several approaches, including digital watermarking programs, blockchain-based provenance tracking and AI-powered deepfake detection capabilities.

Technology stack considerations

The technical foundation supporting short-form video in the enterprise is a core element of enabling proper governance and usage. IT leaders should evaluate the following areas when building or expanding video capabilities:

• Integration with existing infrastructure. Video platforms should integrate natively with core collaboration tools such as Microsoft 365, Slack, corporate intranets and learning management systems. The most successful deployments embed video capabilities within existing workflows rather than introducing new systems.
• Identity management and access control. Video content requires the same access controls as other enterprise assets, particularly for sensitive training materials and internal communications. These controls must integrate with existing identity management systems and align with established data governance frameworks.
• Content discovery and search. Video content discovery requires different capabilities than traditional document management systems that many organizations already have in place. Effective discovery requires investment in metadata tagging infrastructure, transcription services and content indexing capabilities.
• Monitoring and analytics platforms. Several technology platforms can help organizations monitor and manage video content. While these platforms were originally designed for external social media management, their capabilities also translate to internal video governance needs. "These can track video content and engagement to give a clear view of audience sentiments," Agarwal said. "I've found that these tools enhance oversight and help brands flag negative conversations and posts and reduce video tracking and archiving time."

Cultural and ethical dimensions

The rise of short-form video in enterprise environments presents organizations with both cultural and ethical challenges that extend beyond technical implementation. CIOs and IT leaders must address these dimensions strategically to establish sustainable governance frameworks that safeguard their organizations while promoting innovation.

The role of ongoing training

Having some form of guidance and training for the responsible use of short-form video is critical. Rothbaum is emphatic about the importance of continuous education, suggesting that organizations train their staff and continually update their training over time.

"A policy only works if people know to follow it," she said. "This isn't just an IT issue either; it's a business risk and a reputational issue."

Training cannot be treated as a one-time event. As platforms evolve and new features emerge, employees need updated guidance on how policies apply to new scenarios. Organizations should create open forums where employees feel comfortable asking questions and raising concerns about video content creation.

Rothbaum drew parallels to cybersecurity training. "Just like cybersecurity training, we need to treat AI-responsibility training the same way," she said. The training should emphasize real-world consequences so employees understand that casual video posts can have serious legal and business implications.

Establishing standards for inclusion and respect

Video content makes bias and discrimination more visible than text-based communications, requiring explicit attention to inclusion and respect guidelines. Organizations need to establish clear standards that address:

• Respectful representation and inclusive language in all video communications.
• Protocols for featuring employees in video content, including proper consent procedures.
• Privacy boundaries and expectations around internal video sharing.
• Appropriate content guidelines that reflect organizational values.

Balancing creativity with corporate security

Overly restrictive policies will drive employees to work around formal systems, creating shadow IT risks. Insufficient governance exposes organizations to compliance violations, data breaches and reputational damage.

"I think the most effective approach is managed enablement. That means clear guidelines that are repeated across departments and repeated until they've become ingrained in the culture," Rothbaum said. "You can't just hope to lock everything down and call it a day. It's about creating smart guardrails, so your team knows what requires sign-off and where the legal risks live."

Building cross-functional governance frameworks

Developing effective video governance policies requires convening the right stakeholders from the start as part of creating a collaborative culture within the organization. Howden emphasized the collaborative nature of this work:

"A CIO needs to create a short-form video policy after discussing with executive stakeholders, such as the chief information security officer, chief revenue officer, legal, compliance and business leaders, to fully understand the risks and the opportunities," Howden said.

Sean Michael Kerner is an IT consultant, technology enthusiast and tinkerer. He has pulled Token Ring, configured NetWare and been known to compile his own Linux kernel. He consults with industry and media organizations on technology issues.