Frequently asked questions

SAAII is a UK-based professional education body specialising in AI governance, AI regulation (with particular focus on the EU AI Act), and AI risk and assurance. We deliver assessed, CPD-accredited professional certification to the people who have to make AI compliant in practice — compliance officers, in-house counsel, risk professionals, and internal auditors.

Our programmes are built for working professionals: compliance officers, in-house lawyers, risk managers, DPOs, internal auditors, technology governance leads, and consultants whose clients are asking about AI. You do not need a technical background. You do need to be someone whose job it is (or is about to be) to make AI systems compliant in a real organisation.

No — SAAII is a professional education body, similar in nature to bodies such as the IAPP, ISACA, or the Institute of Risk Management. Our credentials sit in the professional-certification space rather than the academic-degree space. Our programmes are assessed and CPD-accredited through the UK CPD Certification Service, which recognises structured professional development.

Fair question. The honest answer is that you should judge us on our published materials, our assessment rubric, and the substance of the programmes themselves. Nothing on our site is behind a “call us for details” wall — pricing, rubric, retention periods, refund policy, and full syllabus outlines are all public. If any of that reads as less rigorous than what an established provider gives you, we don’t deserve your trust yet. Read the free sample materials on the Programmes page and see what you think.

No. Our programmes are written for professionals whose job it is to govern, regulate, or audit AI — not to build it. We assume you can follow a legal or regulatory text but not that you can read Python. Where technical background is genuinely useful, we teach it from first principles in the Foundations of AI pillar.

For most people the right entry point is EU AI Act Foundations (£495). It’s the fastest route to being able to hold a substantive conversation about AI regulation with regulators, boards, or clients. If you already know the Act well, you might prefer to start with AI Governance for the Enterprise (£595) or AI Risk and Assurance (£595).

Most single programmes are designed for around 30–40 hours of study, which working professionals typically spread over 6–10 weeks. You have 12 months from enrolment to complete, so life can get in the way without penalty.

A recent web browser and a device you can type on for assessments. All Content is delivered through our web-based learning management system. There’s nothing to install.

Each programme concludes with an integrated assessment — typically a substantive written piece that resembles work you would produce in practice (a compliance memo, a board-facing risk paper, a regulator response, an incident postmortem). Assessments are marked by human examiners against our published rubric:

• Regulatory accuracy — 30%
• Applied judgement — 30%
• Artefact quality — 25%
• Communication — 15%

Pass mark is 60. Distinction at 75. Marks and examiner comments are returned within 15 working days.

Yes. Your first resit is included in your programme fee. Additional resits are £95 each. Examiner comments are designed to be actionable — we want you to pass, and we tell you what to fix.

The SAAII credential ladder is structured to reflect professional growth:

• Certified Practitioner (CP) — one assessed programme completed to pass standard. Demonstrates foundational competence in a defined area.
• Certified Specialist (CS) — four programmes across a single pillar (or three plus a defined applied project), all at pass or distinction. Demonstrates applied expertise.
• Chartered Fellow (CF) — the senior tier. Requires CS standing, substantial post-CS professional practice, and a peer-reviewed contribution to the field (a published paper, a substantial industry contribution, or a documented practice case).

You can hold multiple CP credentials in parallel. See the Certification page for full detail.

Every credential is issued with a unique verification code. Third parties can enter the code at thesaaii.com/verify (coming) to see the current standing of the credential, the date awarded, and any restrictions. We do not disclose your assessment marks to verifiers without your written consent.

The Content is updated as the regulatory landscape evolves — that’s part of what you pay for. Your credential itself is held indefinitely, but you can (and are encouraged to) return to updated modules as new regulatory guidance is issued. For Chartered Fellows we operate a light-touch continuing-development expectation to keep the designation meaningful.

The IAPP AIGP is a 100-question multiple-choice exam with a US-privacy flavour. It is a genuine industry-standard credential and, for many US-focused roles, worth having. SAAII is different in five ways: it is assessed (human-marked written work, not MCQ), it is CPD-accredited (UK CPD Certification Service), it is a ladder (CP → CS → CF, not a single certificate), it does not require a prior qualification, and it is anchored in UK and EU regulation. See our full comparison page.

PECB, BSI, TÜV, and Advisera run excellent auditor-track courses centred on the ISO/IEC 42001 standard. If your job is to certify AI management systems as an auditor, those courses are exactly right and we don’t try to replace them. SAAII teaches AI governance more broadly — the EU AI Act, sector regulation, risk and assurance across the AI lifecycle — for the in-house compliance, legal, and risk professionals who have to design and defend the governance system that an auditor will one day audit.

Yes. Volume pricing is published: £395/seat (10–24), £295/seat (25–99), £225/seat (100+). We provide cohort-level progress reporting, dedicated onboarding, and (for larger cohorts) tailored sector overlays. Request a briefing via the For organisations page.

The four core sectors on our published roadmap are Financial Services (available from Q1 2027), Healthcare and Life Sciences (Q2 2027), Public Sector (Q2 2027), and Defence (Q3 2027). For other sectors — technology, manufacturing, professional services — the core programmes apply well without a sector overlay. See the Sectors page.

We offer sector-specific pathways rather than white-labelling — the CPD accreditation and the credential integrity depend on SAAII being the awarding body. For very large deployments (500+ seats) we can discuss a co-branded delivery within a mutually agreed framework. Write to teams@thesaaii.com.

UK consumer law gives you 14 days to cancel from purchase (this right ends once you start accessing the Content). Outside that window, we consider refunds case by case — refunds are normally granted if you have consumed less than 20% of the Content, less a 10% administration fee. Full detail on the Terms page.

Yes:

• Cohort licensing — see the volume tiers above
• Public sector, education, and registered charity — 20% on individual enrolment. Verified at enrolment.
• Founding cohort — the first 100 individual enrolments in each programme receive founding-member pricing (25% off), permanently listed on the credential

For programmes at £495 and above, yes — a three-month interest-free instalment plan is available at checkout. For cohort licences, instalment terms are set in the written agreement.

Most employers with a professional development budget will fund enrolment on request — the programmes are CPD-accredited and produce a tangible credential, which makes them easy to justify. We supply a template funding request on request; write to enrol@thesaaii.com.

Yes. The Content is in English and delivered online. The regulatory content is anchored in UK and EU law but the applied judgement, governance frameworks, and risk-and-assurance material transfer well to other jurisdictions — this is one of the most common reasons international professionals enrol with us.

Subscribe to Institute Updates at the foot of any page. We send substantive briefings roughly every two to three weeks — regulatory updates, framework analysis, and Institute news. No marketing dressed up as insight.

SAAII welcomes practitioner contributors — regulators (past or present), general counsel, chief risk officers, senior consultants, and academics whose applied work reaches practice. Write to faculty@thesaaii.com with a short note on your background and what you’d want to teach.