September 2, 2025
(the image is AI-generated and illustrates the difference between certified procedures and actually controlling AI)
In the US, many tech bros still roll their eyes at regulation. “Slow down innovation? No thanks.” The default regime is to ship first, fix later , and if users get burned, well, that’s the cost of progress.
Europe, of course, has taken a different path. With the EU AI Act on the horizon, it’s clear regulators don’t want a repeat of the Wild West we saw in the early days of social media. Guardrails are coming.
And here’s the good news: ISO/IEC 42001 may actually help. For companies that want to differentiate themselves from the cowboys by showing customers, regulators, and investors that they take trustworthy AI seriously, ISO 42001 offers a ready-made framework. It’s a way to stand up and say: “We don’t just build and use AI. We manage it responsibly.”
That said, the badge comes with limitations. Certification signals intent, but not invincibility. So before you hang that certificate on the wall, let’s talk about the fine print.
If you’ve been around information security for a while, you already know the drill with ISO 27001. Get certified, hang the certificate on the wall, and, voilà, customers feel safer. At least, that’s the theory.
Now enter ISO 42001: the brand-new global standard for AI management systems. Think of it as the cousin of ISO 27001, but for artificial intelligence instead of information security. Same DNA: management systems, governance, continuous improvement. Different domain: training data, model bias, explainability, misuse.
And just like its older cousin, it comes with upsides… and caveats.
The EU AI Act is watching
The EU AI Act is about to shake up the AI landscape the way GDPR did for privacy. High-risk AI providers will have to prove they manage AI responsibly: fairness, transparency, resilience, human oversight.
ISO 42001 fits neatly into that story. It gives companies a structured way to say: “Yes, we have an AI management system. We’ve thought about bias. We track provenance. We document lifecycle risks.” For compliance officers and procurement teams, it’s a relief.
But, just like ISO 27001 in relation to DORA that I covered here, ISO 42001 is a baseline, not a finish line. The EU AI Act will ask: “Show me your risk testing. Show me your human-in-the-loop controls. Show me your monitoring in production.” A shiny certificate alone won’t cut it.
Déjà Vu: The ISO 27001 analogy
Remember the downsides of ISO 27001 (see here)? They echo here too:
- False comfort: Certified doesn’t mean risk-free AI.
- Scope tricks: You can certify one product team while the rest of the org experiments with AI in the shadows.
- Minimum bar: Management system ≠ strong technical safeguards.
- Playing catch-up: Standards move slower than AI innovation (generative models, prompt injection, agentic AI).
If ISO 27001 was the gym membership, ISO 42001 is your new yoga pass. Both signal intent. Neither guarantees you’re actually in shape.
Why bother, then?
Because, just like ISO 27001, ISO 42001 is becoming the entry ticket. Without it, expect longer procurement cycles, tougher questions from clients, and maybe even disqualification from contracts in regulated sectors. With it, at least you’re speaking the language of governance.
And strong providers will go further, adding independent attestations, technical red-teaming, and AI-specific assurance. Just as security-savvy firms combined ISO 27001 with SOC 2, expect AI-savvy firms to combine ISO 42001 with robust EU AI Act compliance evidence.
Wrapping it up
ISO 42001 is useful, but don’t confuse the badge with true trustworthy AI. It’s a structured framework, a conversation starter, a signal of intent.
But if the EU AI Act is the exam, ISO 42001 is just your study guide. Passing the test will require real proof that your AI systems are safe, fair, transparent, and resilient in the wild.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not the certificate that matters. It’s whether your AI behaves responsibly when it counts.
Addendum: 8 Reasons ISO 42001 alone won’t save your AI
This article is analogous to my article on ISO 27001, see here.
1. The false comfort blanket, reloaded
ISO 42001 proves you’ve set up processes to manage AI responsibly.
It does not prove your AI won’t hallucinate, discriminate, or leak sensitive data tomorrow. A certified company can still deliver AI that goes spectacularly wrong.
2. Scope games
Just like with ISO 27001, companies define the scope themselves in the so-called Statement of Applicability. They can adapt it and limit it to the controls they are comfortable with.
That means they can certify one neat “AI product line,” while ten other teams are off running shadow models in the basement. Customers see “ISO 42001 Certified” and assume the whole AI estate is covered. Spoiler: it’s not.
3. Paper tigers vs. wild models
ISO 42001 is about management systems: policies, processes, procedures, lifecycles.
That’s good hygiene, but it doesn’t guarantee your use of AI or your AI product is hardened against prompt injection, or that your recommender system won’t amplify bias. Real AI security and testing can be much messier than the standard anticipates. See for example my post on AI becoming an attack vector.
4. Slow standards in a fast field
AI is moving at breakneck speed: agentic AI, RAG pipelines, adversarial attacks. Standards? They take years to update. By the time ISO 42001 was published, ChatGPT had already reset the global conversation. Don’t expect the standard to anticipate tomorrow’s threats.
5. The auditor lottery, again
Certification bodies vary. Some will grill you on explainability and model risk. Others will skim your documentation and call it a day. Customers rarely know how tough the audit was, and the difference between “barely compliant” and “robust” can be huge.
6. Management ≠ trustworthiness
ISO 42001 ensures you’ve thought about risk, fairness, and transparency. It doesn’t prove your model actually is fair and transparent in practice. You can end up with glossy governance docs while the algorithm quietly discriminates against entire groups.
7. The EU AI Act looms larger
ISO 42001 helps you speak the language of governance, but the EU AI Act will demand more:
- Concrete evidence of risk testing
- Human oversight mechanisms
- Monitoring in production
- Conformity assessments for high-risk systems
A certificate is nice. A regulator asking for proof you can’t provide? Less nice.
8. Who’s Who in the AI Zoo?
With ISO 27001, it’s usually clear: you’re either the service provider or the customer. Easy enough.
With AI? Not so much. ISO 42001 borrows role definitions (AI Producer, AI Provider, AI Service/Product Provider, AI Customer), but in practice it’s slippery:
- If you’re a product vendor that quietly uses AI behind the scenes, are you an AI Provider, an AI Producer or a regular service provider?
- If you buy a pre-trained model and wrap it into your app (LLM Wrappers, see my post), are you suddenly an AI Producer too?
- And when your AI hallucinates and causes damage, who’s accountable: you, your upstream model vendor, or the cloud platform it runs on?
This blurred accountability makes relying on an ISO 42001 badge even trickier for customers. And when the EU AI Act comes knocking, the response “we weren’t sure who was responsible” won’t fly.
Disclosure: AI helped me refine my thoughts and was fed with my previous posts
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