The international standard for responsible AI governance. Are you ready for certification?
ISO/IEC 42001:2023 establishes the framework for AI Management Systems. Aona provides the pre-built controls, automated evidence collection, and governance tooling that accelerate your path to certification.
ISO 42001 follows the Harmonised Structure common to ISO management system standards — with AI-specific controls and objectives in Annex A.
ISO 42001 requires organisations to establish, implement, maintain, and continually improve an AI Management System. This includes defining the scope of AI activities, establishing an AI policy, assigning roles and responsibilities, and ensuring leadership commitment. The AIMS provides the overarching governance structure for all AI-related activities.
The standard requires a systematic approach to AI risk assessment that goes beyond traditional IT risk. This includes risks related to bias and fairness, transparency and explainability, data quality, societal impact, and reliability. Organisations must identify AI-specific risks, evaluate their likelihood and impact, and implement proportionate controls.
Organisations must establish an AI policy that includes commitments to responsible AI development and deployment, ethical considerations, compliance with applicable regulations, and continual improvement. The policy must be communicated to all relevant stakeholders and reviewed regularly to remain effective and current.
ISO 42001 requires organisations to monitor, measure, analyse, and evaluate AI system performance against defined objectives. This includes establishing metrics for AI system accuracy, fairness, and reliability, conducting internal audits of the AIMS, and performing management reviews to assess the effectiveness of AI governance.
The standard mandates a cycle of continual improvement for the AI Management System. Organisations must address nonconformities, implement corrective actions, and identify opportunities for improvement. This ensures that AI governance evolves alongside the organisation's AI capabilities and the regulatory landscape.
An AI Management System is only as strong as its scope. AI tools adopted without governance create gaps that certification auditors will find.
ISO 42001 requires organisations to understand the context of their AI activities. Shadow AI — tools adopted without governance oversight — creates a blind spot that makes it impossible to define the scope of the AIMS accurately or assess all AI-related risks.
AI tools deployed without risk assessment undermine the entire AIMS. If employees use AI for hiring decisions, customer profiling, or financial analysis without governance review, the organisation faces unmanaged risks that auditors will identify as nonconformities.
Certification auditors expect documented evidence of AI governance controls in practice. Without visibility into actual AI usage — including which tools are used, by whom, and for what purpose — organisations cannot demonstrate that their AIMS is effective and operational.
Purpose-built AI governance that provides the operational foundation for your AI Management System.
Aona provides a library of controls that map directly to ISO 42001 clauses and Annex A objectives. Accelerate your AIMS implementation with controls for AI risk management, data governance, transparency, and monitoring — ready to deploy and customise for your organisation.
Every AI interaction, policy enforcement action, and risk assessment is automatically logged and stored. Generate the documented evidence ISO 42001 auditors expect — including AI usage logs, policy compliance records, risk treatment evidence, and management review inputs.
Aona provides the operational layer for your AIMS. Define AI policies, assign risk ownership, track control effectiveness, and manage AI tool approvals — all within a framework that maps to ISO 42001 requirements and supports your certification journey.
Generate certification-ready reports at any time. Aona produces documentation that addresses each ISO 42001 clause — from scope definition and AI policy to risk assessment results, control implementation evidence, and performance metrics. Reduce audit preparation time significantly.
Pre-built controls, automated evidence, and audit-ready documentation — accelerate your path to AI management system certification.