Thomson Reuters Standard for High Stakes AI

TORONTO, May 27, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Thomson Reuters (TSX/Nasdaq: TRI), a global content and technology company, today shared its standard for Fiduciary-Grade AI™, a higher benchmark for AI used in professional contexts where accuracy, accountability, and trust are critical. Fiduciary-Grade AI is purpose-built for professionals operating under duties of care and regulatory oversight. It is grounded in authoritative, domain-specific content, protected by rigorous privacy and security safeguards, shaped by subject-matter experts, and designed to deliver transparent, verifiable outputs.

As AI is increasingly used in high-stakes environments, from legal decision-making and financial disclosures to regulatory filings and client advice, "almost right" is not sufficient. Systems must meet a higher bar than general-purpose productivity tools.

Fiduciary-Grade AI defines how AI should perform when professional liability is on the line. It represents Thomson Reuters standard for AI that supports work in high-stakes professions, whether in the courtroom or the boardroom. Before professionals operating in high-precision fields can fully embrace deeper AI integration into their everyday workflows, they need to know that the AI they are using stands up to scrutiny and that its outputs are reliable and verifiable.

"For generations, trust in professions has been defined by standards, certification, and fiduciary duty. When someone carries a designation like CPA or JD, we understand both their qualifications and the obligations that shape how they work. The same logic has to apply to AI," said Steve Hasker, President and CEO of Thomson Reuters. "If AI is to start taking on a more meaningful share of professional work, we need to assess it to a meaningful standard. That means building systems on authoritative content, shaping them with the expertise of professionals who do this work every day, and producing reasoning that can be reviewed and defended. That's what Fiduciary-Grade AI means and that's the standard we build to."

The Four Principles of Fiduciary-Grade AI

Fiduciary-Grade AI is defined not just by what it produces, but by what it is allowed to access, retain, and rely upon in generating outputs that inform professional judgment:

• AI grounded in authority; with access to the right context
  
  A Fiduciary-Grade AI system must derive its substantive outputs from authoritative, curated, and domain-specific content, not just information scraped from the open internet, while also operating with the full context required to complete professional work. Every material output must be traceable to a source that a qualified professional can independently locate, cite, verify, and trust. And only when AI agents can access, know, and act on the specific data, knowledge, systems, and tools can they complete the complex, multi-step tasks that professional work demands.
  
    
• Data privacy and security are imperative
  
  Where privacy is paramount, Fiduciary-Grade AI is built to protect it. Privacy and security must be structural features of the system's architecture, not policy overlays or configurable options.
  
    
• Built with human expertise, not just human oversight
  
  Professional workflows must be designed, tested, and continuously refined with meaningful involvement from credentialed subject matter experts in the relevant professional domain. When ambiguity or risk arises, the system must recognize its limits and bring professionals back in rather than generating an output that overstates its reliability, keeping accountability human and outcomes defensible. Fiduciary-Grade AI requires that customers have access to real-time human support to ensure transparency and trust.
  
    
• Transparent, verifiable reasoning
  
  By clearly surfacing and referencing the sources it relies on, AI must be able to provide a reviewable trail of what the system did and what it relied on, sufficient to allow a qualified professional, and, where applicable, a regulator, court, or auditor, to evaluate the basis for the output and determine whether the result is reliable and defensible. Making each step in its planning, reasoning, and execution process visible to the user is vital to helping young professionals learn and grow.

High stakes professional work requires a different standard

AI for professional work must be built to Fiduciary-Grade. This is the standard Thomson Reuters builds to, and the standard delivered through CoCounsel for legal, tax, audit, and compliance professionals. As AI moves deeper into regulated work, the defining question is no longer whether a system can generate an answer - it's whether professionals can verify and stand behind the result.

About Thomson Reuters

Thomson Reuters (TSX/Nasdaq: TRI) informs the way forward by bringing together the trusted content and technology that people and organizations need to make the right decisions. The company serves professionals across legal, tax, accounting, compliance, government, and media. Its products combine highly specialized software and insights to empower professionals with the data, intelligence, and solutions needed to make informed decisions, and to help institutions in their pursuit of justice, truth, and transparency. Reuters, part of Thomson Reuters, is a world leading provider of trusted journalism and news. For more information, visit thomsonreuters.com. 

Media Contact

Kat Hanley, Corporate Communications

kathryn.hanley@thomsonreuters.com  

SOURCE Thomson Reuters