SOC 2 vs ISO 27001: Which Should an AI Startup Do First?

Almost every AI startup that starts selling to mid-market and enterprise customers hits the same wall within a year: a security questionnaire, followed by the question of whether you hold SOC 2 or ISO 27001. Both are credible answers. Both unlock deals. But they are not interchangeable, and doing the wrong one first, or both at once before you are ready, wastes money you probably do not have. This is a decision worth making deliberately rather than by default.

SOC 2 is an attestation, not a certification. It is a report produced by a licensed accountant under the AICPA framework, describing how well your controls meet the trust services criteria, most commonly security, with availability and confidentiality often added. It comes in two flavours: Type 1, a snapshot of your controls at a point in time, and Type 2, which tests whether those controls actually operated over a window of typically three to twelve months. SOC 2 is the dominant expectation in North America, and for a US-focused AI startup it is usually the faster path to a yes.

ISO 27001 is a true certification against an international standard, issued by an accredited certification body after an audit. It is built around an information security management system, the ISMS, which is a living set of policies, risk assessments and controls rather than a one-off report. It carries more weight internationally, particularly in Europe, the UK, Australia and much of Asia. If your earliest large customers are outside the United States, ISO 27001 is frequently the credential they recognise and trust.

The practical decision usually comes down to where your buyers are. If your pipeline is full of American companies, lead with SOC 2 Type 2, accepting that you may start with a Type 1 to have something to show while the observation window for Type 2 runs. If your pipeline is European, British or Australian, or if you expect to handle the data of customers in those regions, ISO 27001 will open more doors per dollar. We have watched startups burn three months pursuing the wrong one because a single loud prospect asked for it, when the rest of their market wanted the other.

There is a strong argument for sequencing rather than choosing. The two frameworks share a large overlap in the underlying controls: access management, change control, vendor risk, encryption, logging, incident response. Build the security program once, and you can satisfy both with far less than double the effort. The common pattern we recommend is to lead with whichever one your immediate revenue depends on, get it cleanly, then add the second as a layer on top when a deal requires it. Doing both from a cold start simultaneously tends to overwhelm a small team.

This is where compliance automation platforms change the maths. Vanta, Drata, Secureframe, Sprinto and Thoropass all support SOC 2 and ISO 27001 from a shared evidence base, automating the connection to your cloud, identity provider and code repositories to continuously collect proof that controls are running. For an AI startup with no dedicated security hire, these tools are close to essential. They turn a project that once consumed a senior engineer for months into something a founder can drive in evenings, and they make adding the second framework genuinely incremental.

A specific note for AI startups: neither SOC 2 nor ISO 27001 says much about your model itself, your training data, bias, or the behaviour of the AI you ship. Enterprise buyers in 2026 are increasingly aware of this and are starting to ask about AI governance separately, which is where ISO 42001 enters the picture. Our guidance is to get your security credential first because it is the immediate gating requirement for deals, then look at AI-specific assurance as the next layer once the basics are in place. Do not try to solve everything in the first compliance push.

If we had to give a single default for the median AI startup in 2026, it would be this: if your money is American, do SOC 2 Type 2. If your money is international, do ISO 27001. In either case, run it on an automation platform from day one, write your policies to be real rather than performative, and plan from the outset to add the second framework and AI governance later. Compliance is not a one-time hurdle. It is a capability you are building, and the order you build it in should follow the revenue, not the loudest prospect.