Probe Group wins ISO 42001 AI certification across brands

Probe Group has achieved ISO 42001 certification across all its brands, making it, according to the company, the first customer experience service provider in Australia to gain the accreditation on that basis.

The certification covers Probe CX, Convai and Innovior, as well as Probe Group's internal enterprise systems, under a single, independently audited artificial intelligence management and governance framework.

ISO 42001 is an international standard for AI management systems. It requires organisations to show that AI risks are assessed, use is controlled, and deployment decisions are made by the appropriate people.

The move comes as contact centres and business process outsourcing providers face closer scrutiny over how they use AI in operations that often involve personal and financial data. The sector handles large volumes of customer interactions across voice, chat, email and messaging for banks, retailers, utilities and government departments.

Probe Group began preparing for the certification nearly two years ago and has maintained an AI Ethics Committee for more than two-and-a-half years. The process took 18 months, suggesting rivals only now starting the work could remain behind for some time.

Client assurance

A single certification across the group's brands could reduce compliance work for customers that add services from another part of the business. Instead of carrying out separate AI reviews for each brand, clients can rely on one governance structure that applies across the organisation.

That may matter most in regulated industries, where procurement and risk teams have increased their focus on supplier controls around AI. Financial services and government clients, in particular, have been pressing vendors to show how they manage model risk, misuse and data handling.

The certification covers AI tools already in use in contact centre operations, including automated transcription, real-time analysis designed to give team leaders coaching insights, and systems used to identify suspicious patterns after calls end.

Probe said those tools are also used in quality assurance and fraud detection. Fraud has become a sharper issue for contact centres as social engineering scams and account takeover attempts have grown more sophisticated.

David Buerckner, chief information security and risk officer at Probe Group, said customers increasingly want proof that suppliers are using AI responsibly.

"Everybody is using AI. Our customers want to be working with someone who is using it, and using it responsibly. This ISO 42001 accreditation shows our clients that Probe Group is taking a mature approach to how we are using AI to support them," Buerckner said.

He said the commercial pressure was no longer only about adopting new tools, but about showing that controls are in place before those tools are embedded more deeply in frontline services.

"Our clients want the service improvements AI can deliver, but they can't afford to take on the extra unmanaged risk that is so often associated with AI use to get them. Certification means the assurance work has already been done and independently verified, so they get the benefit without having to perform their own assurance," Buerckner said.

Sector pressure

AI has become more common across customer service operations as providers look to automate administrative tasks, review interactions at scale, and spot signs of fraud more quickly. That shift has also raised questions about governance, particularly where systems process sensitive identity, payments or account information.

Boards and regulators have been sharpening their expectations around oversight, risk management and accountability for AI use. In practice, that has created demand for external verification rather than internal policy statements alone.

Probe Group argued that robust governance is now a competitive issue in contact centres because clients want the operational gains from AI without taking on added legal, operational or reputational exposure. A provider that has already completed certification may have an advantage in bids where buyers are comparing not just technology use, but evidence of controls.

Buerckner said the company viewed the standard as a way to avoid creating new risks while trying to solve existing ones.

"There is no point reducing one risk for a customer by opening the door to a worse one," Buerckner said.

He added that companies only starting the process now could face a lengthy catch-up.

"This is a 12-to-18-month process. Any provider starting today is starting a long way back, and the market is not going to wait for them. By the time they get to where we are now, we will be two years ahead again," Buerckner said.