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RICS Responsible Use of AI — Customer Guide

Last updated: 2026-05-21 (Plan 145 v1)

What is the RICS standard, and why does it matter to you?

The RICS Responsible Use of AI in Surveying Practice professional statement (effective September 2025) is binding on every RICS- regulated firm and every individual chartered surveyor. Failure to meet it can be referred to Standards and Regulation under the RICS Rules of Conduct — with the most serious consequence being suspension of regulated services. The quickest way to take pressure off your team is to keep an honest AI register, ship the AI Use Disclosure Statement clients are entitled to, and keep a real audit trail of who used which tool on which engagement.

What RICS-specific features does Secruna ship?

  • AI register — every AI tool the firm uses (AVMs, GIS, generative drafting, due-diligence checkers, client-facing chatbots) catalogued with risk classification and named owner.
  • AI Use Disclosure Statement template — one-click draft per engagement, populated from the register.
  • Rule book v1 — rules at rule_book/v1/rics/ covering AVM use, GIS overlays, generative-AI drafting, due-diligence assistance and client-facing chatbots.
  • Audit trail — every change to the register or a disclosure tracked with reviewer, time and reason.
  • Engagement linkage — disclosure statements attach to the engagement record so the RICS inspector can walk the firm's work in date order.
  • Two-person sign-off — high-risk tool classifications require countersigning before they land in the register.

Limitations (v1)

  • No matter-management integration. Secruna does not currently push disclosure statements into matter-management systems (Mattersphere, Visualfiles, custom CRM). Export is via PDF / CSV.
  • No PII (Professional Indemnity Insurance) integration. The firm reports PII material as required by its PII contract; Secruna does not auto-notify insurers.
  • Single-firm scope. The register is per RICS-regulated firm. Group-level rollup across multiple RICS firms is on the roadmap.

What the RICS standard is

The professional statement covers responsible use of AI across all RICS practice areas. Five rule areas matter to Secruna customers:

  1. Automated valuation models (AVMs) — when and how AVMs can be used for regulated valuation work.
  2. GIS and spatial AI — overlay tools, satellite analysis.
  3. Generative AI drafting — reports, advice letters, marketing.
  4. Due diligence assistance — contract review, lease abstracting.
  5. Client-facing chatbots — instruction triage, FAQ handling.

Each carries an obligation to disclose to the client, retain an audit trail and apply professional judgement to the AI output.

What Secruna covers

The v1 rule book covers:

  • AVM use — register entry, disclosure obligation, professional-judgement note.
  • GIS — data-source register, accuracy disclosure.
  • Generative drafting — model + prompt log, reviewer record.
  • Due diligence assistance — tool register, scope-of-use note.
  • Client-facing chatbot — tool register, disclosure on first interaction.

Using the AI Use Disclosure Statement

The disclosure statement is generated per engagement from the dashboard under Engagements → New Disclosure. The PDF includes:

  • §1. Engagement identification — client, matter, surveyor.
  • §2. AI tools in scope — every tool used on this engagement.
  • §3. Professional-judgement record — how the surveyor applied judgement to the AI output.
  • §4. Audit trail — relevant activity from the engagement.

Filename: secruna-rics-disclosure-{engagement_id}-{date}.pdf.

What Secruna does NOT cover

  • The professional-judgement substance. Secruna captures that a judgement was applied; the substance is the surveyor's work.
  • PII insurer notification. Firm-managed.
  • Matter-management push. Export only in v1.

Frequently asked

Q. We are a small surveying firm with no in-house compliance. Do we still need this? The RICS standard binds every RICS-regulated firm regardless of size. The disclosure obligation applies to every regulated engagement.

Q. We use an off-the-shelf AVM. Whose register does it land in? Yours. The firm using the AVM owns the register entry. The AVM provider has separate obligations under the standard.