EN 18274 has been the reference everyone keeps namedropping, sometimes accurately, often not. It has passed its final vote at CEN-CENELEC and is expected to publish sometime in 2026, the first European standard to put a checkable shape around the AI Ethicist job title the market had otherwise been treating as a personality description. It is worth being precise about what a final vote actually settles, and what publication itself will still leave open.
The standard was developed under CEN-CENELEC’s Technical Committee JTC 21, and defines competence requirements for people working in AI ethics and governance roles. A final vote locks the technical content; what is left before publication is largely process, not substance.
What it sets out is a competence structure across domains covering
- risk,
- governance,
- technical understanding,
- ethical reasoning, and
- legal literacy,
extending down to the obligations of
- independence,
- confidentiality, and
- conflict-of-interest management
that make the role possible to do honestly, not just plausibly.
Publication will not be the same as a functional certification market.
A standard being adopted answers what the role requires; it does not, by itself, answer who certifies a person against it, or how. That is a separate infrastructure, built by accredited certification bodies, that tends to follow a standard’s publication rather than arrive alongside it.