Published on 19 June 2026 · 9 min read
AI governance in practice: from ISO 42001 to daily decisions
How to translate an international standard into concrete decisions: use-case inventory, risk classification, controls and evidence that survives an audit.
- Governance
- ISO 42001
- Compliance
ISO/IEC 42001 does not demand bureaucracy; it demands traceability. The difference between an auditable organisation and an exposed one is the ability to show, for every AI use case, who approved it, which data it uses, which risks were assessed and who supervises it.
The minimum viable governance
- A living inventory of AI use cases, including tools adopted without central approval (shadow AI).
- Risk classification aligned with the EU AI Act for every use case.
- Proportional controls: human review, decision logging and data boundaries by risk level.
- Recurring evidence: committee minutes, test results and an incident log.
With these four elements in place, an organisation answers in minutes what today takes weeks, and can enable more use cases with less friction because the approval criteria are explicit.
Well-designed governance does not slow adoption down: it is what lets you say yes faster.
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