AI SaaS Platform
Artificial Intelligence, 40 employees, 14 weeks
Overview
An AI-native SaaS company building large language model applications for enterprise clients. Forty employees, Series A funded, processing sensitive client data through proprietary AI models. They needed to demonstrate both information security and responsible AI governance to win enterprise contracts and prepare for EU AI Act compliance.
The Challenge
Enterprise clients were increasingly requiring evidence of AI governance alongside traditional information security certifications. The company was receiving procurement questionnaires with specific sections on AI risk management, bias assessment, and data governance that they could not adequately address.
The EU AI Act compliance deadline was approaching, and the company's AI systems fell within the high-risk category requiring formal governance frameworks. Without a structured approach, compliance would be reactive and expensive.
The competitive landscape was intensifying. Several competitors had already achieved ISO 27001, and first-mover advantage on ISO 42001 was a significant differentiator given that very few UK AI companies held the certification.
Our Solution
We designed a dual certification programme that leveraged the significant overlap between ISO 27001 and ISO 42001. Approximately sixty percent of the documentation and controls addressed requirements for both standards, reducing total effort and cost.
The AI governance component required particular attention. We conducted a full AI systems inventory, developed an AI risk assessment framework aligned with the EU AI Act risk categories, and established transparency and explainability procedures for each AI model in production.
Bias and fairness evaluation procedures were established for the company's NLP models, with quantitative metrics and ongoing monitoring requirements. Data governance controls addressed the full AI data lifecycle from collection through training, inference, and retention.
The combined internal and external audit programme was structured to minimise disruption, with shared evidence collection and a coordinated audit schedule across both standards.
“ISO 42001 gave us a structural advantage that our competitors simply could not match. Enterprise clients recognised that we were serious about responsible AI. The dual certification programme was brilliantly efficient, we got two certifications for significantly less than the cost of doing them separately.”
CEO
AI SaaS Platform
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