Risk Assessment Before Adopting AI Solutions

Before adopting an AI solution, whether developed internally or contracted from an external provider, you need to assess the risk it introduces based on the data it will process, the degree of autonomy it will have and the impact of a possible failure or manipulation. This assessment must go beyond a generic security review and include AI-specific questions, such as the origin and quality of the training data, the explainability of the model's decisions, and whether the provider can demonstrate controls against attacks such as prompt injection or data poisoning. Classifying each solution by risk level, similar to how it's done with critical vendors, makes it possible to prioritize controls and prevent a support chatbot from receiving the same level of scrutiny as a model used for credit or medical decisions, where errors have much greater consequences.