The Production AI Institute is governed by a set of principles designed to preserve the independence and integrity of both the framework and the certification programme.
The Production Safety Framework is maintained by the PAI Framework Committee — a group of senior practitioners with demonstrated production AI deployment experience. The Committee reviews and approves all changes to the PSF, including domain additions, removals, and criteria updates. Framework changes follow a public comment process: proposed changes are published for a minimum 30-day comment period before adoption. Any practitioner or organisation may submit comments. All comments received are published alongside the final decision.
The certification programme is governed by the PAI Assessment Board, which operates independently of the Framework Committee. The Assessment Board sets examination standards, approves and trains assessors, reviews appeals, and monitors assessment quality. CPAP and CPAA assessors are required to hold CPAP certification themselves and complete PAI assessor training. Assessors with a commercial relationship to an applicant are recused from that applicant's assessment.
Operational decisions — exam scheduling, support, billing — are made by the PAI operations team. Decisions affecting the standard, assessment criteria, or certification status require Committee or Board approval, as applicable. No individual has unilateral authority to change the framework or revoke a certification.
Committee and Board members are required to disclose commercial relationships with AI vendors, cloud providers, and model developers. Members with relevant conflicts abstain from decisions in their area of conflict. Disclosure records are maintained and reviewed annually. PAI does not accept sponsorship from any organisation that could benefit commercially from specific framework content. See our independence policy for full details.
PAI publishes: the current version of the PSF (with version history), all public comments received on proposed framework changes, the names and affiliations of Committee and Board members, and an annual report covering certification volumes, assessment quality metrics, and framework activity. We believe transparency in governance is itself a component of institutional legitimacy.