Innovation comes in many areas, and compliance professionals need to not only be ready for it but also embrace it. Join Tom Fox, the Voice of Compliance, as he visits with top innovative minds, thinkers, and creators in the award-winning Innovation in Compliance podcast. In this episode, host Tom Fox visits with Clarence Chio, co-founder and CEO of Coverbase, about modernizing third-party risk management as AI reshapes vendor due diligence.
Chio describes how traditional onboarding relies on long questionnaires, SOC 2/ISO documentation, and trust centers that streamline document exchange but were built for human-driven workflows. He argues AI makes the process risky and increasingly meaningless because vendors can auto-complete questionnaires convincingly and customers can analyze them with AI, eroding the value of nuance and attestation. Chio contrasts static, point-in-time evidence with the need for dynamic, continuous security evidence, noting software changes faster than annual assessments and third-party software frequently appears in breach chains. He proposes moving from check-the-box questionnaires to first-principles risk validation, including continuous information sharing, deeper technical evidence, and machine-readable artifacts such as SBOMs. He highlights Coverbase’s open-source Trust MCP, which provides scoped, standardized access to verified vendor evidence for an agent-driven future.
Key highlights:
Why Coverbase Exists
Trust Centers Explained
AI Makes Due Diligence Risky
Attestation and Human Loop
Static vs. Dynamic Evidence
Machine-Readable Trust Future
Resources:
Coverbase
Clarence Chio on LinkedIn
Innovation in Compliance was recently honored as the Number 4 podcast in Risk Management by 1,000,000 Podcasts
