# 6.5 Communication processing, ISO 42102

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  6.5 Clause

  

# Communication processing

  The group covers how the system produces or interprets messages for people or other agents: language, speech, summaries, explanations, questions and conversational turns. It includes both understanding and generation.

  
- capabilities group

- ISO/IEC DIS 42102

- Last updated: 2026-10-22

  
    

## What this settles

Communication is the capability a user experiences most directly and the one most easily over-claimed. Fluency is not accuracy, and a confident explanation is not a reason.

    

## Who it binds

The organisation, as a method choice. Consumer, accessibility, language and professional communication duties come from their own regimes and are not created by this draft.

    

## What to do in your practice

Describe the languages, registers and channels supported, the reading level, and the behaviour when the system is uncertain. Record whether the output is labelled as machine generated and how a person can escalate.

    

## Evidence an auditor or regulator asks for

      Three artefacts that make this unit checkableA communication envelope: languages, channels, reading level and limits.States what the claim covers.
An uncertainty and escalation test.Shows the system communicates its limits.
A sample of real output with the label and the escalation path.Proves the user sees how to get help.

    Ask your teamWhen the system is unsure, does it say so in words a user understands, and is there a person to escalate to?

    

## Common gaps this page catches

- The system answers in every language but is tested in one.

- Uncertainty is expressed as confident prose.

- No escalation path is visible in the output.

    

## What to prepare before publication

Test the uncertainty path and the escalation path with real users. Rewrite the capability claim to the languages and channels actually tested.

    

## How to test it here

Take one live system rather than a template, find the field or sentence where Communication processing is used, and put this page beside it. Record the answer, the artefact and the date. A glossary entry on its own is an intention; a dated record beside a live artefact is evidence.

    

## What this page does not claim

The page does not reproduce the draft, does not know the descriptor wording that the public preview withholds, and does not certify the system or the organisation. It states the unit at the claim level "capabilities group" and stops where the public record stops.

    

## Common questions

    What does Communication processing mean in ISO/IEC DIS 42102?
The group covers how the system produces or interprets messages for people or other agents: language, speech, summaries, explanations, questions and conversational turns. It includes both understanding and generation.
What evidence should we keep for 6.5?
A communication envelope: languages, channels, reading level and limits. An uncertainty and escalation test.
Is Communication processing a requirement?
No. The draft is a descriptive framework. It sets no management system requirement and no conformity test. It becomes binding only when a contract, a regulator or a management system adopts it.

    

## Related units

    
- 6 AI system capabilities dimension

- 6.1 General

- 3.4 conversational learning

- 7.3 Characterization framework of AI system methods and capabilities

  

  
    
      

## Source and claim

      ISO/IEC DIS 42102, Clause 6.5, Communication processing

      Open the ISO public entry

      https://www.iso.org/standard/86898.html

      Retrieved 22 October 2026.

      The heading is in the public preview; the descriptor body is not.

    

    
      

## The record

      Stage 40.60, Close of voting, recorded 8 September 2026.

      Planning date 16 September 2027, an estimate. See the basis.

      The draft record · How it is built

    

    
      

## Check your own system

      Build the method and capability matrix from ten answers and see which cells still need evidence.

      Run the free check

    

  

Nothing here is guessed while you wait. Every line is written from the public ISO record and the public preview, and points to the exact clause it came from. How the record is built.

Last updated: 2026-10-22 · Markdown version · Check your system

Source: https://iso-42102-revision-checker.theartofservice.com/capabilities/communication-processing/