Why is it important to have a clear and agreed audit scope?

Aclear and agreed audit scopeensures that the audit willadequately cover all relevant areas of the AI Management Systemand that the audit team understands:

Boundaries of the audit(departments, processes, AI systems)

Objectives and criteria

Whatmust be included or excluded

As perISO 19011:2018 – Clause 5.2, determining the audit scope is critical to ensuring theaudit is effective, relevant, and complete. Similarly, inISO/IEC 42001:2023 – Clause 9.2.1, the scope must be defined to evaluate the full effectiveness of the AIMS.

The PECB Lead Auditor Guide reinforces that without a clear scope, the audit risks missingcritical operational, ethical, or compliance-related areas.