OVERT1.0

AI governance frameworks tell organizations what controls should exist. They generally do not specify how to produce independent, tamper‑evident proof that those controls actually executed — on a given interaction, under a given configuration, at a given time. That gap leaves regulators with documentation instead of evidence, auditors with narratives instead of cryptographic receipts, and incident responders reconstructing events from operator‑controlled logs.

OVERT closes that gap. It is an open standard for observable verification evidence at the AI runtime boundary. It specifies how to produce independently verifiable records that declared governance policies, security controls, and oversight actions executed — without exporting protected content from the operator’s environment.

Where existing standards define objectives and management processes, OVERT operates one layer beneath: at the runtime boundary where AI systems actually process requests, execute tool calls, and produce outputs. It defines what a conformant runtime control system must prove, what an independent attestation provider must verify, and what a qualified assessor must examine when a conformance claim is made.

The standard applies to any AI system deployed in a setting where governance claims must be verifiable — healthcare, financial services, insurance, employment, federal procurement, and autonomous agentic systems where AI agents execute tool calls and make decisions without step‑by‑step human oversight.