ISO 42001
Compliance
Secure the evidence your auditors need and the visibility your board demands.
Quod Orbis is trusted by organisations worldwide...
and why does it matter now?
ISO 42001 is the world's first international standard for AI management systems. Published in December 2023, it provides a framework for organisations to establish, implement, maintain and continually improve the responsible development and use of AI.
Any organisation developing, deploying or using AI systems — across all sectors and sizes. ISO 42001 applies whether you build AI internally, procure AI tools, or use AI through third-party SaaS platforms.
The EU AI Act Article 40 is driving organisations toward ISO 42001 as the practical governance standard for compliance. Boards, auditors and regulators now expect proof that AI policies are not just written, but working.
Organisations without a functioning AI management system face regulatory exposure under the EU AI Act, reputational risk from ungoverned AI usage, and an inability to evidence controls to auditors, customers and the board.
Most organisations are adopting AI faster than they can govern it. The challenge is not understanding what ISO 42001 requires — it is operationalising it continuously and proving it is working.
AI inventory gap
No complete, maintained register of AI systems in use, sanctioned or otherwise. Shadow AI makes this harder by the day.
Point-in-time evidence
Governance frameworks get documented at implementation but controls degrade. Auditors want evidence it is working now — not when you last checked.
Fragmented oversight
AI governance sits across IT, legal, compliance and the business — with no single source of truth that brings it together for the board.
Board accountability without visibility
ISO 42001 places accountability at leadership level — but most boards cannot see the status of AI controls in real time.
EU AI Act alignment
ISO 42001 is the practical bridge to EU AI Act compliance — but only if your management system is continuously operating, not just documented.
Integration with existing frameworks
Organisations already running ISO 27001 need ISO 42001 to integrate cleanly — not create a parallel, siloed compliance process.
Our CCM platform sits underneath your ISO 42001 management system, giving you real-time visibility, continuous controls monitoring and audit-ready evidence that your AI governance is actually working.
How Continuous Controls Monitoring
maps to ISO 42001
Here is how the platform addresses the standard's core requirements.
AI system discovery and a live inventory, complete and continuously maintained.
Board-level dashboards giving leadership real-time visibility of AI controls.
Continuous risk monitoring, with real-time alerts whenever your AI risk posture changes.
Role-based access and automated reporting keep the right people informed.
Continuous controls monitoring across all AI systems — sanctioned and shadow.
Automated audit evidence for every control and every clause, continuously updated.
Automated incident flagging and corrective action tracking, built into the platform.
Controls mapped to live, continuous evidence — so you’re always audit-ready.
Achieving ISO 42001 certification requires more than a platform, it requires expert guidance on building and embedding your AI management system. Our AI Governance consulting service works alongside the CCM platform to design your framework, map your controls and ensure your governance is built to last.
"It wasn't a hard job getting board approval — it was understood very quickly why our organisation needed this."
CISO, Financial Services Organisation
"It wasn't a hard job getting board approval — it was understood very quickly why our organisation needed this."
CISO, Financial Services Organisation
See the Quod Orbis CCM platform in action
Take a self-guided tour and see how the CCM platform monitors AI controls, maintains your ISO 42001 evidence and keeps your board informed — continuously.
Your questions, answered
ISO 42001 is the international standard for AI management systems, published in 2023. It sets requirements for how organisations govern, monitor, and continually improve their use of artificial intelligence. It applies to any organisation that develops, deploys, or uses AI systems, including regulated industries like financial services, healthcare, and critical infrastructure, where AI governance is increasingly expected by regulators, customers, and auditors.
ISO 27001 governs information security management — protecting data confidentiality, integrity, and availability. ISO 42001 governs AI management specifically; how AI systems are developed, deployed, monitored, and controlled for risk, bias, transparency, and accountability. Many organisations need both: ISO 27001 protects the systems and data; ISO 42001 governs the AI built on top of them.
No.
ISO 42001 certification isn’t a legal requirement under the EU AI Act. However, it’s widely recognised as a practical route to demonstrating compliance with the Act’s governance, risk management, and documentation requirements, since the standard’s controls map closely to what the Act expects from providers and deployers of AI systems.
Quod Orbis maps continuous controls monitoring directly to ISO 42001’s clauses — covering AI system discovery and inventory, risk assessment, control implementation, and audit evidence, so organisations get continuous, real-time assurance rather than a point-in-time audit snapshot.
Yes, because the two standards share underlying governance and risk-management structures, a CCM platform can monitor controls for both simultaneously, giving a unified view of information security and AI governance rather than running separate compliance programmes side by side.
Shadow AI refers to AI tools or systems used within an organisation without the knowledge or approval of IT, security, or compliance teams — for example, employees using unsanctioned AI apps to process company data. Continuous controls monitoring detects Shadow AI by continuously scanning for AI system usage across the environment, flagging unsanctioned tools so they can be brought under governance rather than remaining an invisible risk.
Our experts have mapped it all before — control mapping is second nature to them. That means real-time, continuous visibility into your ISO 42001 compliance in days — not weeks or months.
Your environment is spun up within hours. From there, our controls experts (with your permission) connect to your data sources and map ISO 42001 controls across your business within days.
The CCM platform provides the continuous monitoring and evidence layer; the AI Governance consulting service provides the expert capacity to strategise your AI Governance, interpret that evidence, prioritise remediation, and guide policy and framework decisions — the two work together rather than as separate offerings.