ISO 42001 in Plain English for Boards
ISO 42001 is a management system for AI. Think “ISO 27001 for security,” but focused on how your organization safely designs, deploys, and operates AI with measurable value and risk control.
Five pillars boards should care about
- Purpose & Policy — define why you use AI and acceptable boundaries
- Risk & Impact — classify use cases by risk, assess legal/ethical/operational impact
- Controls & Guardrails — technical and organizational controls mapped to risk class
- Lifecycle Governance — requirements, build, test, deploy, monitor, retire
- Oversight & Improvement — roles, audits, incidents, continuous learning
Ten Board Questions That Change Outcomes
- What’s our AI policy and who owns it?
- How do we classify AI use cases by risk?
- Which controls apply per risk class?
- How do we measure ROI and risk together?
- What incidents will trigger a rollback?
- How do we validate datasets and model drift?
- Who signs off before deployment, and on what evidence?
- What training and communication do we provide to the workforce?
- Which vendors touch our sensitive data and under what terms?
- What’s our 90‑day roadmap to move from pilot to governed production?
90‑Day Starter Plan
- Define policy and risk classes
- Stand up an AI Use Case Register
- Pick one value stream; map controls
- Pilot compliance telemetry
CFO‑Grade Metrics
- Time saved
- Cost to serve
- Quality improvement
- Risk incidents trend
- Net ROI
Roles at a Glance
- Board: sets intent, accepts risk, demands ROI evidence
- C‑Suite: allocates funding, removes blockers, publishes value
- Architecture: maps capabilities and embeds controls
- Data/ML: implements guardrails and monitoring
- Risk/Legal: pre‑approves standards; audits continuously
- Change/People: drives adoption, training, and comms