Polaris AI Risk Management Framework
AI governance for companies that can't afford to get it wrong.
Polaris is a free AI risk management framework built for SMBs, startups, and growth-stage companies that need to manage AI risk seriously without a dedicated compliance team. It distills the core intent of NIST AI RMF 1.0 and ISO/IEC 42001 into six actionable pillars you can implement and maintain without external certification or a six-month engagement. The full framework is a free PDF download. A scored gap assessment is available for organizations that want to know where they stand across all six pillars.
THE FRAMEWORK
The six pillars
01
AI Inventory & Classification
Know what AI you're running before anything else. Most organizations discover they have significantly more AI in their stack than anyone formally approved. The inventory step creates the foundation everything else depends on.
02
Governance & Accountability
Name one person responsible for each AI system. Not a team. A person. Every governance failure eventually traces back to a moment when no one was clearly accountable for a decision the AI made.
03
Data Practices & Privacy
Know what your vendors do with your inputs.
04
Model & Output Risk
Build the catches before you need them.
05
Third-Party Vendor Management
Your vendors' AI practices are your liability. If a vendor uses your inputs to train their model, stores your data in a jurisdiction with different privacy rules, or has no incident response plan, those risks belong to you.
06
Incident Response & Continuous Improvement
Have a plan before you need one.
Why not NIST or ISO?
NIST AI RMF 1.0 has 72 subcategories and 200+ generative AI actions. ISO/IEC 42001 certification costs $15K to $80K to implement and $8K to $18K to certify. Both are well-designed for large organizations with dedicated compliance teams. For a 20-person company, they are overkill. Polaris takes the core intent of both frameworks and distills it to six pillars you can actually act on without a compliance department.
Polaris is not a certification and does not create legal compliance status under any regulation. It is a structured way to identify where your AI risk is highest and fix the most important gaps first.
FREE DOWNLOAD
Get the free framework
Verify your email and we will send the full Polaris framework PDF to your inbox.
Want a scored gap report?
The free framework tells you what good looks like. The Polaris Assessment tells you where you stand. A Tristella partner reviews your current AI posture across all six pillars, scores each one, and delivers a prioritized remediation roadmap. Fixed-scope. Two to three weeks. Suitable for investor or board presentation.
Schedule a Polaris Assessment