ISO/IEC 42001 (AI management system)
The international standard for an AI management system: how a company governs, assesses and monitors the AI it builds or uses. It can be certified.
Published in 2023, it follows the same structure as ISO 27001: policies, roles, risk and impact assessments, controls, internal audits and continual improvement, applied to AI systems. Enterprise buyers and procurement teams have started to ask for it alongside ISO 27001 or SOC 2, and it maps well onto the organizational duties of the AI Act. Certification needs a running management system with records, not just documents.
Related terms
- SOC 2 and ISO 27001: The two security attestations enterprise buyers ask vendors for: an auditor’s SOC 2 report and an ISO/IEC 27001 certificate.
- EU AI Act: The EU regulation on AI systems: bans some uses, regulates high-risk ones, and sets transparency and AI literacy duties.
- AI literacy (AI Act Article 4): The AI Act duty, in force since February 2, 2025, for companies using AI to ensure their staff understand it well enough to use it.
