What ISO/IEC 5338 Defines
ISO/IEC 5338:2023 is published by ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 42, the joint technical committee responsible for AI standardization. It defines life cycle processes for organizations that engineer AI systems, extending the established systems and software engineering life cycle models in ISO/IEC 15288 and ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 with process outcomes specific to AI.
The standard specifies what a life cycle process must achieve; it does not prescribe how those outcomes should be implemented, and it does not include certification or conformity assessment criteria.
Scope and Life Cycle Stages
ISO/IEC 5338 organizes an AI system's life cycle into six stages: concept, development, production, utilization, support, and retirement. The retirement stage covers decommissioning of AI models once they are no longer in use, an outcome that many organizations' existing software life cycle practices do not explicitly address.
Because the standard defines outcomes rather than methods, organizations can map it onto existing S