SmartSuite for the AI Risk Officer
The AI Risk Officer owns the risk view of artificial intelligence: the AI risk taxonomy, tiering of use cases, assessment of harms such as bias, safety, security and drift, and the controls that keep high-risk systems within tolerance. They report AI risk to the CRO.
What you own
The AI Risk Officer owns the risk view of artificial intelligence: the AI risk taxonomy, tiering of use cases, assessment of harms such as bias, safety, security and drift, and the controls that keep high-risk systems within tolerance.
- Maintain the AI risk taxonomy and tiering criteria
- Assess AI use cases for bias, safety, security, privacy and drift risk
- Define required controls and monitoring by risk tier
- Review high-risk system approvals and conditions
- Track AI incidents and near misses
- Report AI risk posture to the CRO and risk committee
At a glance
The GRC processes this role owns, touches and depends on.
Owns
accountable for the process
Touches
contributes or approves
Depends on
consumes its output
How the GRC processes connect
Three lines of defense set the frame; the chain shows where each process hands off to the next. Colors follow the role: navy is owned, blue is touched, gray is depended on.
Reporting lines
Who this role reports to, who reports to them, and the peers they work with most.
Reports to
Direct reports
Works closely with
How SmartSuite supports this role
Lead
AI governance. Scores AI use cases against the risk taxonomy and records required controls and monitoring by tier.
Risk management. Links AI risks to the enterprise register so they roll up with other risk.
Issues and actions. Tracks AI incidents, near misses and remediation to closure.
Reporting. Reports AI risk posture, high-risk systems and open actions to the risk committee.
Products this role uses most
Industry reference
The NIST AI RMF's Map, Measure and Manage functions and ISO/IEC 23894:2023 describe AI risk assessment: identifying harms such as bias, safety, security and drift and setting controls by tier. The EU AI Act defines the tiers in law, with prohibited, high-risk and limited-risk categories and obligations phased in from 2025; the 2026 Digital Omnibus on AI moved the high-risk requirements to December 2027 for stand-alone systems and August 2028 for systems embedded in regulated products.
In financial services AI risk sits inside model risk management under SR 11-7 and the PRA's SS1/23; in insurance the NAIC model bulletin and Colorado's SB 21-169 rules govern insurers' use of consumer data and algorithms; in healthcare FDA guidance and HHS rules on decision-support tools apply; US federal agencies manage rights- and safety-impacting AI under OMB guidance.
Related roles
Explore Further
Guides and definitions from the GRC Knowledge Center and the What-is glossary, chosen for this role.
Frequently asked questions
What is an AI Risk Officer accountable for?
The AI Risk Officer owns the risk view of artificial intelligence: the AI risk taxonomy, the tiering criteria for use cases, the assessment of harms such as bias, safety, security, privacy and drift, and the controls and monitoring required for each tier. They review high-risk system approvals and their conditions, track AI incidents and near misses and report AI risk posture to the Chief Risk Officer and the risk committee. In SmartSuite that view is held in AI Governance and Enterprise Risk Management (ERM).
How does SmartSuite help an AI Risk Officer tier and assess AI use cases?
SmartSuite scores each AI use case against your risk taxonomy in AI Governance and records the controls and monitoring required for its tier. The officer defines the taxonomy and tiering criteria once; each new use case is then assessed for bias, safety, security, privacy and drift risk against those criteria, and the resulting tier determines what must be in place before approval. High-risk systems carry their approval conditions on the record, visible to the model owner and to later reviews.
How do AI risks roll up into the enterprise risk register?
AI risks are linked to the enterprise register in Enterprise Risk Management (ERM), so they roll up with operational, cyber and other risk rather than sitting in a separate AI list. That matters when the Chief Risk Officer asks for the overall exposure picture: a high-risk model appears alongside the other top risks, with its owner, controls and treatment status, and the officer does not reconcile two registers before the risk committee meets.
How are AI incidents and near misses tracked to closure?
Each AI incident or near miss is logged in Issues Management with an owner, the system involved and the remediation agreed, and tracked to closure. Recording near misses as well as incidents gives the officer a pattern over time, which feeds back into the taxonomy and tiering criteria: if the same harm recurs in a tier that was thought to be low risk, the criteria can be revised with evidence rather than opinion.
How does the AI Risk Officer report to the CRO and the risk committee?
The AI Risk Officer reports AI risk posture, high-risk systems and open actions to the risk committee from SmartSuite, using the same records that hold the assessments and incidents. The report shows which systems are high risk, what conditions they carry and which actions are overdue, without a separate compilation step. The officer works day to day with the AI Governance Lead, Model Risk Manager and Model Validator in the same system, so their inventory, validation and risk views agree.
How quickly can an AI risk function get started in SmartSuite?
New customers can start with SmartSuite Onboarding, a guided four-week program around one or two priority workflows. For this role the first workflow is use-case tiering: the officer loads the risk taxonomy and tiering criteria, registers the AI use cases already known and begins assessments from there. The function does not need a complete inventory on day one. Because the register and issue records are shared with the Chief Information Security Officer and Chief Privacy Officer, security and privacy input arrives on the same record.
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