AI governance platforms and Assettia
Assettia is the data and AI programme record: one place where an organisation keeps what its programme owns, what it has decided, and what it has proved.
An AI governance platform holds the technical estate: the models and agents in use, the controls around them, and the evidence that those controls operate. Assettia holds the programme: what the organisation is trying to do with data and AI, what it has decided, and what it has proved. Both are needed in a mature organisation. They answer different questions, for different readers.
What an AI governance platform holds
An inventory of models and AI systems, their owners and lifecycle stages. The controls applied to each: testing, monitoring, access, documentation. Evidence that controls operate, often mapped to regulations and standards. Workflows for approval and review. Its readers are risk, compliance and engineering teams, and the auditors who check them.
What Assettia holds
The programme's use cases from first idea to delivered value, the data assets they depend on, the decisions taken about them with the person and the reason, the risks the programme carries with their attestations, the evidence of value, and the board reports produced from all of it. Its readers are the chief data officer, the executive team and the board.
Side by side
| What is compared | AI governance platform | Assettia |
|---|---|---|
| Unit of record | A model or AI system | A use case, and everything linked to it |
| Primary question | Are our AI systems controlled and compliant? | Is our programme owned, decided and proved? |
| Primary readers | Risk, compliance, engineering, audit | Chief data officer, executive team, board |
| Where decisions live | Approval workflows around systems | A decision log on the programme's plan, with the reason |
| Where value shows | Rarely; value is out of scope | Value evidence linked to each use case |
| How AI is used | To monitor and test models | To draft records, which a person approves |
| What it produces | Compliance evidence and audit trails | Board reports in which every figure names its population |
| Typical owner | Head of risk or responsible AI | Chief data officer |
Where they overlap
Both keep a register of AI use cases, and both hold a risk register. The overlap is real and it is narrow. Assettia's use case register exists to prioritise and prove value; a governance platform's exists to control systems. Assettia's risk register serves the board and its audit committee; a governance platform's serves the control environment. An organisation with both records the same risk in each, for a different reader, and links them.
When an organisation needs both
When it runs models in production and has a board that wants to know what the programme is for and what it has delivered. The governance platform proves the systems are safe. Assettia proves the programme is worth having. Neither statement can be made from the other tool.
How they work together
The record links to what the governance platform holds. A use case in Assettia can name the system that implements it; a risk in Assettia can reference the control evidence held elsewhere. The board report reads from the record and points at the governance platform where the technical evidence lives. Nothing is copied; each fact stays where it is kept.
Questions people ask
Does Assettia govern models?
No. It records the programme's decisions and risks about them and links to the platform that governs the models themselves.
Can Assettia replace an AI governance platform?
No, and it does not try to. An organisation running models in production needs both.
Do the two risk registers conflict?
They serve different readers. The same risk can appear in both, recorded for the board in Assettia and for the control environment in the governance platform, with a link between them.
Which should come first?
Usually the record, because it exists before there are models to govern. A programme has use cases, data and decisions long before it has systems in production.
See where the record fits beside your tools.
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