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AI Incident Response Playbook

Step-by-step playbook for responding to AI system failures: detection, escalation, regulatory notification, affected-individual communication, and post-incident review.

About this resource

Every organisation using AI at scale will eventually have an AI incident. Most have no plan for when it happens. This playbook provides the workflow: how to detect AI incidents, how to triage them, who needs to be involved, what regulators must be notified, and how to conduct meaningful post-incident review.

What this resource covers

  • AI incident classification matrix (performance, fairness, security, compliance)
  • Severity scoring framework with escalation triggers
  • Cross-functional response team structure and RACI
  • EU AI Act serious incident notification template
  • GDPR breach assessment overlay (where personal data is involved)
  • Affected-individual communication templates
  • Post-incident review template (technical + governance root cause)
  • Incident log template for compliance evidence

Who it's for

  • Risk and compliance teams establishing AI incident processes
  • Legal counsel preparing incident response infrastructure
  • Operations and engineering teams running AI systems in production
  • CROs needing board-reportable incident frameworks

Read the detail on-site

The full analysis behind this resource is published in our insights, each linked to primary regulatory sources.

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