New AI assurance certification combines SOC 2, AIUC-1

The AICPA and the Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company announced a plan to launch a joint assurance certification that combines the organizations’ respective SOC 2 and AIUC-1 examination processes into a single comprehensive independent review of business risk related to AI systems and agents.  

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“Companies have made substantial investments in AI and investors, clients and other stakeholders deserve a fuller, objective picture of whether the technology is safe, reliable and properly governed,” said AICPA president and CEO Mark Koziel in a statement Monday. “This joint offering delivers that and, with CPAs leading the engagement, organizations are able to leverage the expertise, integrity and professional judgment that builds trust across our capital markets.”

The SOC 2 framework, developed by the AICPA, primarily concerns information security and data privacy; an independent auditor examining an entity under this framework under AICPA Attestation Standards looks at the design and operating effectiveness of an entity’s controls along five criteria: security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. The AIUC’s AIUC-1, meanwhile, evaluates the security, safety and reliability of someone’s agentic AI system spanning six principles (data and privacy, security, safety, reliability, accountability and society) and mapping to frameworks including MITRE ATLAS, ISO 42001 and the EU AI Act.

“AI agents do real work, faster than anyone can check it,” said Rajiv Dattani, cofounder of AIUC, in a statement. “This joint certification provides an independent answer to the two questions every organization now asks: What is our security posture? And do AI agents behave as intended? What sets AIUC-1 apart is live testing of AI agent behavior, not just a review of policies and guardrails. Agents are tested across hundreds of risk and attack combinations, from hallucinations and data leakage to manipulative requests and adversarial prompt injection.”

An AICPA spokesperson said that entities pursuing this joint assurance certification will undergo both processes separately, but will eventually end with a single report delivered over the course of a single CPA-led engagement which will serve as an assurance reference on their AI use. Ultimately, they will have both a SOC 2 report and an AIUC-1 certification by the end of the process. Having the process done by a single CPA firm in one engagement means the practitioners will have more familiarity with how the entity works and is structured. 

Currently the joint offering is being piloted at several CPA firms, including Big Four firm PwC; the two organizations are collecting feedback from these pilots, which will provide them with better information on best practices and other refinements when they fully launch in early 2027.