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What changes, and what you can do now
The amendment adds generative AI to a vocabulary that was written before generative AI was a common product category. The public record names the subject but not the added entries. What a governance lead can do now is make the existing vocabulary explicit, so the change lands on a register rather than on memory.
The gap the amendment fills
The 2022 standard has entries for the AI system, the model, machine learning, neural networks, deep learning, natural language generation and natural language understanding. It has no entry for generative AI itself. That absence is not a defect in the 2022 text; it is a record of when the text was written.
The amendment is titled Generative AI. ISO publishes that title, the fact that it amends 22989:2022, and the stage. It does not publish the added terms. Anyone who tells you the exact new definitions before publication is guessing or has a licensed draft.
The 2022 terms a generative AI system already leans on
These entries are public and stable. A generative AI system description will use most of them, so they are the place to start the register.
| Clause | Term | Meaning in our words |
|---|---|---|
| 3.1.4 | artificial intelligence system | an engineered system that produces outputs including text, forecasts, suggestions or decisions for objectives set by people |
| 3.1.23 | model | a representation, whether physical, mathematical or logical, of an entity, a system, a phenomenon, a process or data |
| 3.2.5 | dataset | a set of data sharing one format |
| 3.2.9 | input data | data an AI system uses to work out a predicted output or an inference |
| 3.3.5 | machine learning | the process of tuning the parameters of a model by computational means so that the behaviour reflects data or experience |
| 3.3.7 | machine learning model | a mathematical construct that produces an inference or prediction from input data or information |
| 3.4.4 | deep learning | an approach that builds rich hierarchical representations by training neural networks that have many hidden layers |
| 3.4.8 | neural network | a network built from layers of neurons, one or more, joined by weighted links that can be adjusted, taking input data and producing an output |
| 3.5.7 | explainability | a property of an AI system that lets it set out the important factors behind its results in terms people can follow |
| 3.5.16 | trustworthiness | the ability to meet what stakeholders expect in a way that can be verified |
| 3.6.8 | natural language generation | a task that turns data carrying meaning into natural language |
| 3.6.11 | natural language understanding | a functional unit takes text or speech in natural language, extracts information from it, and describes both the input and what it represents |
Five moves to make before publication
- Put the vocabulary under one owner. A named person, a review date and a version. Without that, the amendment arrives as a reading exercise rather than a change.
- Use the public entries in the artefacts you already have. The AI inventory, the model register, the data schedule and the assurance argument should each cite the clause they rely on.
- Record the local synonyms. Every firm has words that are not in the standard. Put them beside the entry they stand for, or mark them as local terms with their own definition.
- Map to ISO/IEC 42001 clause 3. The management system standard uses the same AI vocabulary. A mapping record shows where the two agree and where the firm has chosen a narrower meaning.
- Diarise the stage, not the rumour. Stage 50.20, 60.00 and 60.60 are public fields. A watch on those fields is more reliable than a newsletter.
What not to do
Do not rewrite the policy around terms you have not read. Do not buy a kit that claims to contain the amendment text. Do not treat a planning date as an ISO deadline. The date on this site is an estimate and is labelled as one wherever it appears.
Common questions
- Does the amendment change ISO/IEC 42001?
- No. It amends ISO/IEC 22989:2022. ISO/IEC 42001 is a separate standard. The vocabulary is shared in practice, so a mapping is useful, but the amendment does not rewrite the management system requirements.
- Can we prepare without the text?
- Yes, at the level of the register: owners, citations, synonyms, mappings and a review date. The exact new definitions can only be added when ISO publishes them.
- Is the 2022 standard still current?
- Yes. It was published on 19 July 2022 and remains at stage 60.60. The amendment will change it when published; it does not withdraw it now.
Source. ISO catalogue record 88145, read on 21 October 2026. The public clause 3 entries come from the ISO Online Browsing Platform. Claim level: public record and public definitions only. No amendment text is reproduced.
Last updated: 2026-10-21 · Markdown version