An AI Accountability Audit is an independent, fixed-scope audit of how a company adopts and governs AI. An AI Accountability Audit measures six dimensions: workflow automation, tool deployment, AI literacy, governance and oversight, investment spend, and outcome tracking. The result is issued as a signed Statement with a public identifier, benchmarked against a peer cohort and reissued annually.
kn0w issues the AI Accountability Audit for FinTech and HealthTech companies in Australia and the United Kingdom.
01 — What it measures
An AI Accountability Audit measures six dimensions across the CEO and six function heads. Each dimension is measured on evidence supplied by the company, not on self-declared maturity.
01
Workflow automation
The proportion of a function's workflows that are automated or AI-assisted in production, as distinct from planned or piloted.
02
Tool deployment
The AI systems and automation tools running in production in each function, named and categorised.
03
AI literacy
The level of AI capability across the leadership team and each function, and where that capability is concentrated.
04
Governance and oversight
The policies, approval structures and accountability assignments controlling how AI is evaluated and deployed.
05
Investment spend
Annual AI investment across tooling and subscriptions, platform and infrastructure, allocated headcount, and implementation.
06
Outcome tracking
Whether the company measures returns on the AI it runs, and what evidence supports the measurement.
02 — How it is conducted
An AI Accountability Audit is a fixed-scope engagement conducted across seven sessions. Session 0 is held with the CEO. Sessions 1 to 6 are held with six function heads. Each session pairs a structured intake form, which establishes the factual baseline, with a voice session, which establishes depth on what is running rather than what is planned.
Scope is fixed before the engagement begins and does not expand during it. The company supplies the evidence. kn0w measures that evidence against the published methodology and issues the Statement.
03 — What it is not
04 — What is issued
An AI Accountability Audit is issued as a Statement. The Statement is the founding act of issuance and the artefact a company submits to a board, a regulator or a counterparty.
Every Statement carries a four-part identifier in the form:
kn0w / NNNNNN / YYYY-MM-DD / vX.Y
Authentication of a Statement rests on the hallmark, the timestamp and the four-part identifier.
Members hold standing for twelve months from issuance. Standing is confirmed annually by the Annual Statement, issued under the same hallmark, timestamp, four-part identifier and methodology as the Statement. The Annual Statement supersedes the prior operative artefact at issuance, and the superseded artefact is retained in full as historical record.
05 — Frequently asked questions
Standing is the institutional status conferred at the founding act of issuance — the kn0w Audit — and maintained through three Quarterly Reviews during the cycle and the Annual Statement at the institutional anniversary. Members hold standing; standing is what the relationship maintains.
Annually. The Annual Statement is issued at the institutional anniversary as a full re-engagement under the same methodology, and supersedes the prior operative artefact.
The Statement is issued to the company audited. It is written so that a board can rely on it, and so that it can be submitted when a regulator asks what evidence exists.
No. Certification attests that a management system meets a published standard. An AI Accountability Audit measures how a company adopts and governs AI across six dimensions and is issued as a Statement, benchmarked against a peer cohort.
kn0w issues the AI Accountability Audit for FinTech and HealthTech companies in Australia and the United Kingdom.