AI governance makes AI projects manageable and traceable – and leaves room for continuous improvement. It produces the documentation with which management can evidence its decisions and, on that basis, drive innovation.
AI governance is not only a matter for providers and deployers of high-risk AI. It concerns every organization that works with AI. And the obligations under the EU AI Act have been postponed, not lifted – and the difference between the two is the time to get it right.
A documented AI management system creates a solid basis of evidence: decisions, responsibilities and risk assessments are recorded so they can be followed – not in people's heads, but in registers.
The obligations under the EU AI Act arrive in stages, but they arrive. Anyone who thinks about registers, roles and training records today will meet current and future requirements without time pressure.
Governance also means putting things in order once. Which tools are in use, who uses them for what, which data sits where, who is responsible? This inventory is not a by-product – for many organizations it is the most valuable part of the process.
Structured data, defined test cases, clear approvals: what sounds like bureaucracy is in fact quality assurance. The same order that would convince an auditor makes your AI applications more precise and more reliable.
Clear responsibilities answer objections before they arise. Acceptance is the underrated success factor in every AI rollout. Governance delivers it along the way.
Corporate procurement and public-sector clients increasingly ask how their suppliers handle AI. Those who can evidence governance win contracts that others lose.
In almost every organization, staff use AI – and not only the official tools. Data can end up in the wrong hands that way. An AI register makes visible – and governs – what is actually in use.
An AIMS (Artificial Intelligence Management System) is the structured management system with which an organization steers, monitors and continuously improves the entire life cycle of its AI applications.
It puts AI governance into practice: processes, roles, responsibilities and risk-management measures are laid down bindingly – not as a declaration of intent, but as a rule that applies in day-to-day operations.
Management has to make sure that its company complies with the law – including when it uses AI. That requires a suitable organizational set-up. And in a dispute, management has to prove that it acted with due care. That also applies when the accusation is that it failed to act.
No two AIMS are alike. Roles, organizational context, risks, measures, metrics – all of that looks different in every organization.
The architecture beneath it should always be the same: proven and compatible. That is precisely what the international standard ISO/IEC 42001 provides for the governed operation of AI in an organization. On that basis we develop your individual AI management system together with you.
The Business Judgment Rule of German company law protects business decisions that rest on adequate information – for example choosing an AI system, or deciding to switch it off. It does not protect the question of whether the law is being complied with. Whether the documentation of an AIMS is enough in a given case is a legal assessment. For that we work closely with @legal Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft mbH, who make the legal appraisal case by case.
An AIMS to ISO/IEC 42001 does not stand alone. It connects to what you already have – and to what you may still be aiming for.
Kai Löhde is a PECB-certified ISO/IEC 42001 Lead Implementer.
Get going – with an AIMS Starter from Deepwraite®.
Not every organization needs certification right away. The AIMS Starter adapts to the particulars of your organization. It works as a steering instrument for your AI governance when you are not yet aiming for certification to ISO/IEC 42001.
Compatible from the outset. If you decide to certify later, you build on the modules of your AIMS Starter. None of it has to be built again.
Do get in touch.
38 questions across nine topic areas, around 20 minutes, no registration. Your answers stay in your browser. At the end you see which building blocks of your AI management system are already in place – and which are missing.
If you want to know whether and how artificial intelligence makes sense in your organization, or how to set up and successfully run an AI management system based on ISO/IEC 42001 — talk to us. A first conversation takes 30 to 45 minutes and commits you to nothing.