# What is an AI register?

> An AI register is a company's own inventory of every AI system it builds, buys or uses, naming its owner and how risky it is.

Source: https://meshin.co/glossary/ai-register
Updated: 2026-10-02

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## Why it comes up

It is usually the first document a procurement team or an investor's checklist asks for, and the first one a company discovers it lacks. A security review cannot get past "what AI systems touch our data" without one. A board asking about AI risk gets a shorter conversation once a real list sits in front of it. For high-risk systems, the EU AI Act goes further: Article 71 requires joining a public EU database.

## What to do about it

Build a spreadsheet before anything more elaborate. Use one row per system, with columns for name, what it does, vendor or model, data it can see, owner and risk tier. Interview engineering, marketing, finance and support instead of relying on a self-reported survey. That is how tools added outside a formal process get missed.

Review the list on a fixed schedule, since a stale register looks worse in review than admitting you lack one. Quarterly is reasonable.