For Clients & Procurement
What a Hallmark means for buyers
If you are buying AI implementation work, a Hallmark is independent evidence that the work has been tested against a published standard by a certifier with no stake in the outcome. This page explains what you can rely on, and how to require it.
What it certifies
A Hallmark certifies that a specific Engagement was tested against a named version of a published Standard, by an Accredited Assayer with no commercial interest in the result, and that it passed. It records four things on its face: who built the work, against which standard, certified by whom, and when. Each is attributable and entered on the public Register.
What it does not certify
A Hallmark is not a warranty, an insurance policy, or a guarantee of commercial outcome. It does not value the contract, vouch for the vendor as a whole, or replace your own due diligence. It certifies that this Engagement met this standard at the date of Assay — no more, and no less. That precision is what makes it citable.
Every Hallmark is verifiable independently of the party that holds it. Each Hallmarked Engagement carries a canonical identifier in the form AF-YYYY-NNNN-CIPHER — for example AF-2026-0001-OII, where the final segment is the certifying Assayer's cipher. To verify:
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Take the identifier from the Hallmark or the supplier's submission and look it up on the public Register. Each identifier resolves to a single, permanent detail page — its canonical public record.
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Confirm the record matches what you were told: the Engagement, the client and sector, the Practitioner, the Assayer and its cipher, the Standard and version, and the date. The detail page also shows which gates passed and when.
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Where a supplier embeds the Hallmark in a response, it uses the embeddable widget at /hallmark/widget, which checks its own status against the Register on render. If the identifier is withdrawn or unmatched, the widget reads Not on the Register — so the mark cannot be forged by copying an image.
A Hallmark that does not resolve to a current entry on the Register has not been verified, whatever it appears to claim. The Register, not the document in front of you, is the source of truth.
To require a Hallmark in a sourcing document or contract, you need only a short clause. The following is drafted to be pasted into an RFP, a statement of requirements, or a schedule, and adjusted to your house style.
Suggested clause
Engagements shall be Hallmarked under IDEA by an Accredited Assayer. The Supplier shall procure that the work delivered under this agreement is tested against the current published version of the IDEA Methodology by an Assayer accredited by The Assay Foundation and independent of the Supplier, and shall provide the resulting Hallmark and its canonical Register identifier (AF-YYYY-NNNN-CIPHER) on completion. The Authority may verify any such Hallmark against the public Register, and a Hallmark that does not resolve to a current entry on the Register shall not be treated as satisfying this requirement.
Substitute your own defined terms for "Supplier", "Authority", and "this agreement" as your template requires. The operative point is the single short sentence; the remainder makes it verifiable and enforceable.
A citation is only as good as the independence behind it. The Foundation is a non-profit body limited by guarantee, with an asset lock and a board on which no single commercial interest holds a majority. It does not deliver implementation work, engage Practitioners, or compete with its members. An Accredited Assayer may not certify work in which it holds a commercial interest. The mark's only value is its integrity, and the structure is built to protect exactly that.
This is why "Is it Hallmarked?" is a question you can put in a sourcing document and defend to audit and to the board: the answer resolves to a public record, certified by a party with nothing to gain from the outcome.
The structure in full
How independence is protected
Read the independence regime