1. AI Policy (Enforceable, Not Aspirational)
  • ☐ Defined explicitly prohibited AI use cases
  • ☐ Documented approved vs restricted use cases
  • ☐ Embedded mandatory human oversight requirements
  • ☐ Included LLM / agentic AI-specific rules
  • ☐ Established approval workflow for new AI use cases
  1. EU AI Act Risk Tiering (Liability Trigger)
  • ☐ AI systems formally classified (Prohibited / High / Limited / Minimal)
  • Classification rationale documented and reviewable
  • High-risk systems flagged with compliance obligations
  • ☐ Process in place to reassess classification over time
  • ☐ Clear control ensuring no prohibited systems are deployed
  1. Pre-Deployment Risk Assessment
  • ☐ Bias and discrimination risks assessed
  • ☐ Privacy and data leakage risks tested
  • ☐ Security vulnerabilities tested (prompt injection, jailbreaks)
  • ☐ Hallucination and unsafe output risks evaluated
  • ☐ Model inversion / data extraction risks assessed
  • ☐ Evidence retained: “tested = controlled”
  1. Third-Party AI Governance
  • ☐ Inventory of all external AI models and vendors
  • ☐ Vendor risk assessments completed
  • ☐ Contracts include:
    • ☐ Data usage and ownership rights
    • ☐ Audit and transparency rights
    • ☐ SLA / performance guarantees
    • ☐ Exit and fallback provisions
  • ☐ Internal accountability defined despite outsourcing
  1. Data Governance & Controls
  • ☐ End-to-end data lineage documented
  • ☐ Access controls and data masking implemented
  • ☐ Consent and legal basis tracked
  • ☐ Training data traceability established
  • ☐ Mechanism for right-to-erasure (GDPR Art. 17) applied to models
  • ☐ Data quality controls actively maintained
  1. Continuous Red-Teaming
  • ☐ Adversarial testing conducted before deployment
  • ☐ Continuous testing after deployment
  • ☐ Coverage includes:
    • ☐ Prompt injection
    • ☐ Jailbreak attempts
    • ☐ Data exfiltration
  • ☐ Testing results documented and remediated
  • ☐ Required for all high-risk systems
  1. Documentation (Legal Evidence)
  • ☐ Model cards completed
  • ☐ Datasheets for datasets maintained
  • ☐ Evaluation and validation reports stored
  • ☐ Training data sources and limitations documented
  • ☐ Intended use and misuse boundaries defined
  • ☐ Technical documentation aligned with EU AI Act requirements
  1. Accountability & Governance Structure
  • ☐ Named model owner (business)
  • ☐ Assigned risk approver
  • ☐ Independent reviewer function in place
  • ☐ Ethics / compliance oversight defined
  • ☐ Executive ownership assigned (CAIO / CDAO or equivalent)
  1. Agentic AI Oversight (If Applicable)
  • ☐ Defined scope and autonomy limits
  • ☐ Approval gates for critical actions implemented
  • ☐ Full action logging and traceability enabled
  • ☐ Human-in-the-loop required for irreversible decisions
  • ☐ Kill-switch / override mechanisms in place
  1. Monitoring (Post-Deployment Control)
  • ☐ Continuous monitoring of:
    • ☐ Model drift
    • ☐ Hallucination rates
    • ☐ Bias indicators
    • ☐ Latency and cost anomalies
  • ☐ Fairness monitoring implemented
  • ☐ Explainability tools / dashboards available
  • ☐ Alerts and escalation thresholds defined
  1. Incident Response (72-Hour Readiness)
  • ☐ Formal AI incident response plan in place
  • ☐ Defined workflow:
    • ☐ Detect
    • ☐ Contain / rollback
    • ☐ Fix
    • ☐ Postmortem
    • ☐ Notify regulators (≤72 hours where required)
  • ☐ Roles and responsibilities clearly assigned
  • ☐ Incident logs and evidence retention ensured
  1. Audit & Transparency
  • ☐ Systems are audit-ready at all times
  • ☐ Evidence of compliance centrally stored
  • ☐ AI decision-making transparency documented
  • ☐ Regular reporting (internal + regulatory) established

Final Control Question (Board-Level Test)

Before any AI system goes live, you should be able to answer yes to all:

  • ☐ Do we know what this system is allowed to do—and not do?
  • ☐ Do we know its regulatory classification and obligations?
  • ☐ Can we prove it has been tested for real risks?
  • ☐ Do we know who is accountable in production?
  • ☐ Can we monitor and intervene in real time?
  • ☐ Can we respond within 72 hours if it fails?

Bottom Line

This is no longer a maturity model.
It is a liability control framework.