The PRIMARY purpose of maintaining an audit trail in AI systems is to:

Audit trails in AI systems serve to document the inputs, processes, and outputs of AI decisions, allowing stakeholders and auditors to trace how decisions were made. The AAIA™ Study Guide identifies transparency and traceability as the core functions of an AI audit trail.

“Maintaining audit logs is critical to explainability and accountability. It ensures that decisions made by AI systems can be reconstructed and assessed for accuracy, ethics, and legality.”

Although compliance (D) is an outcome and fairness (B) a goal, only A captures the foundational purpose of audit trails in AI systems.