AI SYSTEM INVENTORY: Build a Register Owners Can Maintain

An AI inventory is only useful when the people who own AI systems can keep it accurate. A spreadsheet filled once and forgotten is not a governance process.

AI System Inventory: Build a Register Owners Can Maintain gives AI governance managers, business owners, IT teams, procurement professionals, risk functions, and internal auditors a practical method for finding, recording, verifying, and maintaining organizational AI deployments.

Learn how to decide what counts as a separately governed AI deployment, distinguish business uses from models and supplier platforms, reconcile overlapping records, and establish stable system identifiers. The book explains how to design a manageable master register, confirm accountable business owners, classify systems for review, link each record to appropriate evidence, and handle changes without losing the history of decisions.

Nine focused chapters take the reader from fragmented source lists to a functioning operating register. Three practical appendices provide a master-register field dictionary and worked record, a model ownership and maintenance procedure, and an inventory assurance and acceptance checklist.

The emphasis is on usable controls rather than elaborate software. The approach can be adapted to a controlled spreadsheet or a more integrated information system. Examples are fictional and the guidance does not substitute for applicable legal, regulatory, technical, or professional assessments.

For teams that need to identify the AI they operate, assign ownership, preserve evidence, and keep the register current, this is a practical starting point.