SECAI Core · phase 8 of 15
Service level agreement
Operating procedures and standards for a service contract.
The Explain card
- Plain English
- A service level agreement (SLA) sets the operating procedures and measurable standards a provider commits to in a service contract: uptime, response times, support hours and what happens when targets are missed.
- Example
- A company buys hosted LLM inference. The SLA promises a specific availability percentage, a maximum latency per request, notification within a fixed period of any security incident affecting customer data, and service credits if the vendor falls short.
- Why it matters
- Your AI system is only as reliable and secure as the services beneath it. SLAs are where defenders write in breach notification, data handling and availability guarantees, and where they gain leverage when a vendor fails.
- Hook
- The promise with a penalty clause.
Where it sits in the deck
Phase 8: Governance, Risk, and Compliance Frameworks
Individual controls need a governance envelope — introduce the risk and compliance structures, standards bodies, and regulations that frame AI accountability at scale.
