Federal AI Governance
High-Impact AI
The class of federal AI use case that OMB Memorandum M-25-21 defines as AI whose output serves as a principal basis for a decision or action with legal, material, binding, or significant effect on rights, services, or safety. M-25-21 narrows the prior M-24-10 categories of "rights-impacting" and "safety-impacting" into the single high-impact tier and triggers the minimum risk management practices: pre-deployment testing, ongoing monitoring, human oversight, and a documented determination that benefits outweigh risks. CAIO approval is required before the use case may operate in production.