Governance & Leadership⏱ 15 min read

The AI Security Leadership Checklist

50 questions every CISO, CTO, and CIO should be able to answer about their organization's AI security posture.

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This checklist is designed for leadership conversations, board reporting, and audit preparation — not for engineers. Each item should be answerable by your AI governance lead without digging through technical documentation.

Use this checklist in three ways: as a gap analysis to find what you don't know, as a board preparation tool to demonstrate AI governance maturity, and as a recurring quarterly review to track progress over time. Your progress is saved automatically in this browser.

0%Maturity Score
Grade FInitial Stage

Complete the assessment items below to calculate your organization's Agentic AI security maturity score.

0 of 51 controls verified

1. AI Inventory & Visibility
2. Agent Security & Permissions
3. Data & Privacy Protection
4. Vendor & Supply Chain
5. Governance & Compliance
6. Human Oversight
7. Incident Response

Scoring Guide for Leadership Conversations

  • 40–50 items checked: Strong AI security posture. Maintain cadence and look ahead to emerging capabilities (multi-agent systems, computer use).
  • 25–39 items checked: Developing posture. Prioritize the unchecked items by risk — agent permissions and data protection first.
  • 10–24 items checked: Early stage. Start with inventory and visibility — you cannot govern what you cannot see.
  • Under 10 items checked: Significant gaps exist. Treat AI security as a priority initiative, not a background task.

No organization checks all 50 immediately. The value is in knowing your gaps — and having a plan to close them.

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A note on "we have a policy for that": Policies that aren't technically enforced are not controls. Throughout this checklist, distinguish between "we have written a policy" and "we have verified the policy is being followed." The former provides legal cover; the latter provides security.