availability
What It Means
Availability means your AI systems, data, and applications are up and running when authorized people need to use them. It's about preventing downtime, outages, or delays that would stop legitimate users from accessing critical AI tools and information when they're supposed to work.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
AI system downtime directly translates to lost revenue, missed opportunities, and frustrated customers or employees who can't get their work done. For AI systems that support real-time decisions or customer-facing applications, even brief outages can damage business relationships and competitive advantage. Many compliance frameworks also require organizations to maintain specific uptime standards for systems handling sensitive data.
Real-World Example
A retail company's AI-powered recommendation engine that drives 30% of online sales goes down during Black Friday weekend due to server overload, causing millions in lost revenue while customers see generic product pages instead of personalized recommendations.
Common Confusion
People often think availability is just about preventing complete system crashes, but it also includes slower-than-normal performance that makes systems unusable in practice. A chatbot that takes 30 seconds to respond isn't technically 'down' but isn't truly available for real business use either.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare, availability ensures critical AI-powered diagnostic tools, clinical decision support systems, and patient...
Finance: In finance, availability ensures trading systems, risk management platforms, and customer-facing applications remain ope...
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Includes:
- 6 industry-specific applications
- Relevant regulations by sector
- Real compliance scenarios
- Implementation guidance
Technical Definitions
NISTNational Institute of Standards and Technology
"Ensuring timely and reliable access to and use of information."Source: SP800-37
"The property that data or information is accessible and usable upon demand by an authorized person."Source: NIST_SP_800
"property of being accessible and usable on demand by an authorized entity"Source: ISO/IEC_TS_5723:2022(en)
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