management standards
ISO 42001 & SOC 2
ISO/IEC 42001 defines a management system for AI: documented controls, impact assessment, and performance evaluation over time. SOC 2 examines whether access to systems is authorized, logged, and bounded. Both end up asking the same question of an agent deployment: where is the operational record.
What an AI management system standard asks for
ISO/IEC 42001 is a management system standard, so it grades the organization, not the software. It asks for an inventory of AI systems, planned controls with owners, an impact assessment for each system, and proof that the controls are monitored and evaluated over time.
Three clauses do most of the work for agent deployments. Clause 6.1 covers risk planning, clause 8.4 covers AI system impact assessment, and clause 9.1 covers performance evaluation. Each one eventually asks for records of what the system did in operation.
Where runtime evidence fits the clauses
A control that lives in a handbook satisfies the documentation requirement and nothing else. A rule enforced at the point of execution satisfies the same requirement and also generates the monitoring record clause 9.1 asks about, because every evaluation writes a decision record you can query.
Impact assessment under clause 8.4 needs context per action: which agent acted, on whose behalf, against which resource. That context is captured on each decision at runtime, so the assessment can cite operations instead of intentions.
The SOC 2 parallels
The Trust Services Criteria were written for people and services, and agents strain them at a known point: an agent can act on behalf of a user without the user's access controls applying to it. CC6, logical access, is answered by authorizing each action against the agent's own identity before it runs.
CC7, system operations, expects records an auditor can sample, and signed decision records are built for that sampling. CC9, risk mitigation, maps to scope boundaries that keep an agent away from data and systems outside its defined lane.
What certification is, and what this is not
Neither standard is a product feature. ISO 42001 certification and a SOC 2 report are audits of your organization, conducted by your auditor, and no purchase confers either. We do not claim to hold these certifications, and a vendor who implies its product makes you certified is describing something that does not exist.
What a runtime layer contributes is the evidence base: controls that are demonstrably enforced, and operational records your auditor can verify independently. The distance between a written policy and a demonstrated control is the part software can close.