Lesson 4 of 19

Understand the six Essential AI Practices

Connect the six Essential AI Practices to specific work and checks. Use them to identify gaps and plan follow-up.

This lesson concerns artificial intelligence (AI) governance: how your organisation assigns responsibility, checks AI use and records decisions and follow-up. AI Governance keeps these records; it does not operate the external AI tool for you.

At the end of this lesson

Recognise all six practices.
Select introductory or implementation guidance.
Connect a gap to responsibility and follow-up without claiming compliance.

Before you begin

This lesson is for governance leads and responsible owners. You can read and complete the paper activity without an account.

You need no account. Read the linked official guidance and use your own notes. For optional workplace follow-up, use records you are authorised to edit. If access is blocked, record your proposed response in your notes and ask the responsible administrator to check access.

Key ideas

A practice describes governance work; mapping a record to it does not prove effective controls.

The six practices are Decide who is accountable; Understand impacts and plan accordingly; Measure and manage risks; Share essential information; Test and monitor; Maintain human control.

Follow these steps

1. Name the six practices

Use the six official titles listed below. Treat each as a prompt for specific governance work rather than a tick-box certificate.

Check the result: You can identify which practices a task raises.

2. Connect each practice to a check

Accountability needs a named responsible person. Impacts need affected people and possible harms. Risk management needs identified risks and evidence. Information sharing needs a suitable explanation. Testing needs observed results. Human control needs intervention and escalation.

Check the result: Each relevant practice has a concrete record or check.

3. Choose guidance depth

Read Guidance for AI adoption: foundations for an introduction. Use Guidance for AI adoption: implementation guidance to plan more detailed work. Both are linked under Sources.

Check the result: The selected depth matches what the team needs to do next.

4. Separate facts from gaps

For one task, note what is known, what needs evidence and who can resolve the question. Do not infer performance from a policy statement.

Check the result: You have a specific gap rather than a blanket statement of readiness.

5. Record follow-up

Use an appropriate existing activity or action when authorised. Otherwise write the gap, responsible role and proposed completion check in your notes.

Check the result: The work has an owner and an observable result to look for.

6. Check the claim

Compare planned work, saved records and demonstrated performance. A completed record shows what was recorded; an observed control check supports a narrower performance claim.

Check the result: Your explanation stays within the information actually available.

Practise

Paper activity — fictional information

'The draft plan names an owner and says "staff will check outputs". No check has been observed.' Identify which practices are relevant and what remains to be demonstrated.

Write your response in your own notes before opening the answer. You do not need to sign in, change records or run an assessment.

Check your understanding

Does naming an owner show that all six practices have been met?

Check your answer

No. It addresses accountability only to that extent. Human checking also needs clear responsibility, a procedure and evidence that it works. Testing and monitoring remain relevant. Reread steps 4–6 if the answer claims compliance from a mapped record.

For the activity, accountability, human control, and testing and monitoring are directly relevant. Name who checks drafts, specify the check and observe whether it detects the material error. Other practices may also be relevant if you explain the connection.

Check your work

Name all six practices.
Select the suitable guidance depth.
State one gap, owner and proposed completion check.

Continue learning

Optional worked examples

Sources

These National AI Centre resources inform the lesson. This course does not imply Australian Government endorsement.