documentation
What It Means
Documentation is the collection of written materials that explain how your AI systems work, what decisions were made during development, and how to use or maintain them. It includes everything from technical specifications and model training records to user guides and compliance reports that capture the full lifecycle of your AI initiatives.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
Poor documentation creates massive liability exposure during audits, makes it nearly impossible to explain AI decisions to regulators or stakeholders, and turns AI system maintenance into expensive guesswork when original developers leave. Strong documentation is essential for regulatory compliance, enables knowledge transfer across teams, and provides the audit trail needed to defend AI decisions in legal or business disputes.
Real-World Example
A healthcare AI system flagged a patient for high readmission risk, but when the hospital was sued, they couldn't explain the model's decision because documentation only covered basic functionality, not the specific features or training data that influenced individual predictions, resulting in a costly settlement and regulatory investigation.
Common Confusion
People often think documentation is just user manuals or code comments, when it actually encompasses the entire decision trail including data sources, model assumptions, validation results, and business justifications. Many teams also confuse having lots of documentation with having useful documentation that actually enables understanding and compliance.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare AI, documentation must meet rigorous clinical and regulatory standards, including FDA submission requireme...
Finance: In finance, AI documentation serves as critical evidence for regulatory compliance, risk management, and audit trails, p...
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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
"Collection of documents on a given subject; written or pictorial information describing, defining, specifying, reporting, or certifying activities, requirements, procedures, or results."Source: IEEE_Soft_Vocab
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