By ITIL 5 Master – Jacqueline (Jaqi) Haworth

Today I became an ITIL V5 Master, adding to my V4 Master, V3 Expert and V2 Manager certifications. I’m genuinely proud of that.  Little did I realize when I took my ITIL V2 Foundation 20 years ago that ITIL would become a thread running through so much of my career — shaping how I train others, advise organizations, lead teams, solve problems and challenge my own thinking.

The certificates, though, are probably the least interesting part.  Passing an exam and applying what you learn are very different things.

– You can know every definition and still design a terrible process.
– You can meet every SLA and still provide a poor customer experience.
– You can implement an expensive ITSM platform and simply automate your problems.

The Value of a Framework

A framework is only useful if you use it to make things better.
ITIL has evolved enormously over those 20 years.  V2 gave us process discipline and structure.  V3 taught us to think about the service lifecycle.  ITIL 4 shifted the conversation from following processes to creating value.  And Version 5 evolves again for a world of digital products, experience, transformation, automation and AI.

Three Things from Version 5 that Stand Out For Me

1. Understand the value stream first. Improve it second. Automate it third.
   If the process is poor, automation can simply make a bad process run faster.
2. Customers don’t care about our organizational chart or how green our SLA report is.
   They care whether the service works, whether someone takes ownership when it doesn’t, and what the overall experience feels like.
3. AI doesn’t fix bad foundations.
   Before asking “How can we use AI?” we should ask what problem we are solving, whether we can trust the data and knowledge, who remains accountable, and how we will know it actually improved the outcome.  AI still needs good data, governance, knowledge, value streams and people who understand what they are trying to achieve.

Passing the exam is only the start.
After many years of teaching ITSM frameworks, one lesson has stuck with me.  The real value comes when you go back to work and use what you learned to simplify something, remove waste, improve an experience, challenge a poor metric or question something being done simply because “we’ve always done it that way.”

Remember, a qualification is a milestone.  It’s not the destination.  It’s the beginning of your journey.

AI is good and AI is bad.  We live in a litigious world.  If you don’t have the right controls in place, you can be broke and out of business tomorrow.   AI use can quickly spiral out of control, leaving you with massive bills, and a huge number of AI application to support and manage.  If you thought you had technical debt today, it’s about to grow by a factor of thousands.

AI is everywhere and you and your company need to be prepared:

• Prepared to protect your brand.
• Prepared to ensure legal compliance.
• Prepare  to validate the data your AI tools will be using.
• Prepare  to manage access to confidential and sensitive data.
• Prepared to provide information the business needs.
• Prepared to safeguard your reputation.
• Prepared to maximize your financial return of AI assets and investments.

To do this companies need to adopt ITIL AI Governance.

ITIL AI Governance is a certification module from PeopleCert that shows the ITIL perspective on AI governance and helps organizations manage the risks, ethics, and compliance challenges of artificial intelligence in service management. Unlike static traditional IT controls, it provides a dynamic approach to handle autonomous, fast-moving AI systems across four key perspectives–View Full Course.

When you Safeguard Brand Reputation with ITIL AI Governance you will:

• Mitigate risks related to Shadow AI.
• Mitigate bias by building testable frameworks to catch discriminatory outputs before they reach customers.
• Control AI hallucinations by setting up strict accuracy boundaries so chatbots do not fabricate false promises or bad advice.
• Maintain Trust by proving to clients and stakeholders that the company uses AI responsibly and ethically.

ITIL AI Governance also Improves Operational Efficiency by:

• Reducing Model Drift
• Standardizing Procurement
• Speeding up Adoption

ITIL AI Governance is an OPPORTUNITY to Save Your Company and Your Career – Can You Afforce to Miss Out? 

• If you are responsible for spearheading automation strategy (CTOs, CIOs & Digital Transformation Mangers) – You Can’t Miss Out!
• If you are responsible for integrating AI tooling into operational workflows (Service Desk Managers, Practice Owners and Solution Designers) – You Can’t Miss Out!
• If you are responsible for enforcing ethical boundaries and data privacy (Data Protection Officers, Internal Auditors and Risk Managers) – You Can’t Miss Out!
• Are you beginning your ITSM or Digital Product & Service Management Career? – You Can’t Miss Out!

Are There Prerequisites?

• No
• None
• Not even ITIL Foundation is required – go straight to ITIL AI Governance
• Note – Mandatory training through an Accredited Training organization or Official eLearning is required.  Learners can go straight to the AI Governance Certification with no Foundation requirement.

Is IT Governance Part of the ITIL 5 Pathways (Foundation, Managing Professional, Practice Manager, Strategic Leader or Master?

• No
• ITIL AI Governance is a standalone module, and it is not attached to any of the main certifications nor does it count toward any other ITIL Designations
• Available to everyone!  Start Today!

This Critical AI Governance Certification Covers::

• AI Governance Foundations and Leadership – Understand the difference between having an AI policy and having real AI governance. Describe where an organization sits on the governance maturity spectrum and what good governance makes possible.
• The ITIL AI Governance Improvement – Apply the four-step model: Assess (evaluate current governance maturity and stress-test arrangements), Design (define governance requirements and controls), Implement (deploy governance adjustments), and Maintain (assure, monitor, and continually improve governance).
• The ITIL AI Capability Model (6c) – Identify and describe the six AI capabilities — Creation, Curation, Clarification, Cognition, Communication, and Coordination — and how they shape governance boundaries, risk profiling, and combined behavior.
• Governance Controls and Shadow AI – Design governance controls (preventive, detective, corrective) and decision boundaries. Design Shadow AI controls and apply ethics using a likelihood × impact risk matrix.
• AI Risk, Ethics, and Countermeasures – Identify and describe AI risk categories (bias, privacy, hallucination, opacity), ethical principles, and countermeasures. Apply the capability model and risk-control reasoning to real-world scenarios.
• Cross-Framework AI Governance – Describe how ITIL, PRINCE2, and DevOps provide complementary approaches for AI-enabled work. Apply AI governance within DevOps practices and PRINCE2 methods across stages and decision points.

Exam Details

• Exam body: PeopleCert
• Duration: 90 minutes (non-native English speakers receive additional time)
• Format: Multiple-choice, open book
• Number of Questions: 40 Multiple Choice Questions
• Passing Score: 70% or 28 out of 40 questions answered correctly
• Open-Book Exam – Candidates are allowed to reference official PeopleCert core Guidance eBook
• Delivery Options: Online proctored exam (available anytime, anywhere through PeopleCert)

Note: The ITIL® AI Governance exam is open book and scenario-based, consistent with other ITIL (Version 5) advanced modules. You may use the official eBook and Scenario Booklet during the exam.