AIMS (AI Management System)

The policy, process and control stack that ISO 42001 certifies — the AI-governance analogue of an ISMS.

An AI Management System is the organised set of policies, procedures, roles and controls an organisation uses to develop, deploy and oversee AI systems responsibly. ISO/IEC 42001:2023 is the certifiable standard that defines AIMS requirements, parallel to how ISO 27001 defines ISMS requirements for information security. An AIMS covers AI policy, AI risk and impact assessment, data governance, model lifecycle, human oversight, monitoring and continual improvement. In practice it lives as a documented management system plus the operational controls that implement it, reviewed on a cadence (usually quarterly) and audited annually once certified.

Examples

  • →An AI startup pursuing ISO 42001 stands up an AIMS alongside its existing ISMS, sharing the risk-register, policy-review and internal-audit machinery.
  • →A healthcare AI vendor scopes its AIMS to only the clinical-decision-support product line, leaving the marketing-automation AI outside scope for the first certification cycle.

Common mistakes

  • ✗Confusing an AIMS with a model-governance tool. Model governance (evaluation, monitoring) is one input into the AIMS, not the whole system.
  • ✗Trying to run an AIMS without an ISMS. ISO 42001 references ISO 27001 controls in multiple places; information-security hygiene is a prerequisite, not an add-on.

How LowerPlane handles it

LowerPlane ships an AIMS policy pack mapped to ISO 42001 Annex A, with templates for AI policy, risk register, impact assessment and oversight runbooks. Teams with an existing ISMS reuse the same management-system machinery.

Authoritative sources

Related reading on LowerPlane

Related terms

  • ISO/IEC 42001 — International standard for an Artificial Intelligence Management System (AIMS).
  • ISMS — Information Security Management System — the policy, process and control stack ISO 27001 certifies.
  • ISO 27001 — International standard for an Information Security Management System (ISMS), certifiable by accredited bodies.
  • AI Impact Assessment (AIIA) — A structured review of an AI system's potential harms, benefits and affected parties — required by ISO 42001 Annex A.
  • ISO 42001 Annex A — The 38 AI-specific controls that make ISO 42001 auditable — the AI analogue of ISO 27001 Annex A.
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