---
title: "Justification memo"
description: "The intake record for an AI use case: the problem, the non-AI alternative, the measurable benefit, who bears errors and how they contest them, reversibility and kill criteria."
canonical: https://aigovernanceengineer.com/glossary/justification-memo
author: "Jorge García Aibar"
license: "CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)"
doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22956197
version: "0.5.0"
updated: 2026-09-24
---

# Justification memo

The intake record for an AI use case: the problem, the non-AI alternative, the measurable benefit, who bears errors and how they contest them, reversibility and kill criteria. It answers "should AI be used at all" before a system reaches a gate, the go/no-go determination NIST places early [1].

- Developed in: [ch. 12, Strategy, value and whether to use AI at all](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/governance-program#strategy-value-and-whether-to-use-ai-at-all)
- Chapters: [ch. 12, Governance Program](https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/governance-program)
- In the glossary chapter: https://aigovernanceengineer.com/bok/glossary#t-justification-memo

## Sources

[1] Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework (AI RMF 1.0), NIST AI 100-1 (risk tolerance and residual risk; seven trustworthy characteristics; transparency answers "what happened", explainability "how", interpretability "why"; MAP 1.1 intended purposes; MANAGE 1.1 go/no-go determination; profiles). NIST. 2023-01-26. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.AI.100-1 (verified: primary)