The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is seeking public feedback on an initial version of “Guidance and Templates for Public-Facing AI Documentation,” released as the first document in its AI Standards Zero Drafts pilot project. Comments will be accepted through September 16, 2026.
The Zero Drafts pilot is a new NIST initiative designed to accelerate AI standards development and broaden participation in it. Under the process, NIST collects stakeholder input on priority topics and shapes it into thorough, preliminary drafts. Following further rounds of community input, NIST plans to submit the resulting final draft to a standards developing organization (SDO) for consideration as a proposal for further development into a voluntary consensus standard.
The newly released draft proposes practical templates for documenting AI datasets and models in a comparable, consistent way, and offers actionable guidance for addressing common challenges and tradeoffs in developing such documentation. NIST notes that standardized documentation has the potential to strengthen trust in datasets and models, while also providing a useful starting point for organizations—particularly those without the resources to build internal documentation processes and templates from scratch.
NIST invites input by email to [email protected]. Additional instructions for submissions can be found on line 105 of the initial public draft. Organizations are also welcome to host listening sessions to gather verbal feedback for the agency.
Input received after September 16 may still be considered for NIST’s contributions to subsequent standardization processes or other NIST work on AI documentation.
For more information, visit NIST’s website.
Related news: ANSI’s recent Standards Lab, part of the 2026 ANSI Innovation Summit, included NIST Zero Drafts among several new approaches to accelerating standards development across the community.