transparency
What It Means
Transparency means being able to explain how your AI systems work, what data they use, and why they make specific decisions. It's about providing clear, understandable information to stakeholders about your AI's capabilities, limitations, and decision-making processes.
Why Chief AI Officers Care
Regulators increasingly require AI transparency for compliance, especially in high-risk applications like hiring or lending. Poor transparency creates legal liability, makes it harder to debug problems when AI fails, and erodes stakeholder trust when decisions can't be explained.
Real-World Example
A bank using AI for loan approvals must be able to tell a rejected applicant that the decision was based on debt-to-income ratio and credit history, not just say 'the AI said no.' They need documentation showing the model's logic, training data sources, and performance metrics for regulatory audits.
Common Confusion
People often confuse transparency with explainability - transparency is about disclosing information about the system itself, while explainability is about interpreting specific decisions. You can be transparent about using a complex neural network without being able to explain every individual prediction.
Industry-Specific Applications
See how this term applies to healthcare, finance, manufacturing, government, tech, and insurance.
Healthcare: In healthcare AI, transparency requires providing clinicians and patients with clear explanations of how AI models reach...
Finance: In finance, transparency requires clear documentation of AI model methodologies, training data sources, and decision log...
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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
"<information> open, comprehensive, accessible, clear and understandable presentation of information; <systems> property of a system or process to imply openness and accountability"Source: ISO/IEC_TS_5723:2022(en)
"Understanding the working logic of the model."Source: NISTIR_8269_Draft
"<organization> property of an organization that appropriate activities and decisions are communicated to relevant stakeholders (3.5.13) in a comprehensive, accessible and understandable manner Note 1 to entry: Inappropriate communication of activities and decisions can violate security, privacy or confidentiality requirements."Source: iso_22989_2022
"<system> property of a system that appropriate information about the system is made available to relevant stakeholders (3.5.13) Note 1 to entry: Appropriate information for system transparency can include aspects such as features, performance, limitations, components, procedures, measures, design goals, design choices and assumptions, data sources and labelling protocols. Note 2 to entry: Inappropriate disclosure of some aspects of a system can violate security, privacy or confidentiality requirements."Source: iso_22989_2022
EU AI ActEuropean Union Artificial Intelligence Act
"The characteristic of AI systems to be understandable to humans, whereby information about the AI system is provided to enable people to understand how it works, how it makes decisions, and the reasons for its outputs."Related provisions • Effective: August 2, 2026
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