Cryptographic proof of every skill an agent runs — audit-grade, regulator-ready, signed before execution.
Regulators are catching up fast. The infrastructure hasn't.
Axiom intercepts skill invocations, generates a cryptographic attestation before execution, and makes verification available on demand.
Your agent calls a skill via the Axiom receipt layer. Inputs are hashed with SHA-256 before the skill runs — not after.
{
"skill_name": "echo",
"inputs": {
"message": "reconcile Q1"
}
}
Axiom generates a signed receipt — HMAC-SHA256 signature over the skill name, timestamp, and input/output hashes. Stored immutably.
{
"receipt_id": "AXM-4F8C",
"inputs_hash": "sha256:e3b0…",
"output_hash": "sha256:a1b2…",
"signature": "hmac:f7c3…",
"status": "VERIFIED"
}
Compliance team or regulator requests verification. Axiom uses timing-safe HMAC comparison — mathematically provable, not just a log entry.
{
"verified": true,
"receipt": { … },
"verification_status":
"valid"
}
This is not a mockup. The demo calls a production MCP server, generates a cryptographic receipt, and returns a verifiable signature — all in under 200ms.
Logging and monitoring tools record what happened after the fact. Axiom attests to what was about to happen — before the skill runs. That distinction is the entire compliance argument.
| Capability | Axiom | Log / Monitoring | Observability Platform |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-execution attestation | ✓ Signed before skill runs | ✗ Post-hoc narrative | ✗ Post-hoc narrative |
| Cryptographic proof | ✓ HMAC-SHA256 | ✗ Plain text logs | ✗ Plain text traces |
| Tamper-evident receipts | ✓ Immutable, signed | ✗ Mutable log files | ~ Read-only, not signed |
| Regulator-ready export | ✓ Structured, verifiable | ~ Requires manual curation | ~ Requires manual curation |
| EU AI Act compliance posture | ✓ Built for it | ✗ Not designed for it | ✗ Not designed for it |
| Input / output hash verification | ✓ SHA-256 both directions | ✗ No | ✗ No |
| Open-source independent verifier | ✓ MIT, zero deps | ✗ No | ✗ No |
Your CFO wants a number. EU AI Act fine exposure vs. Axiom annual cost — calculated live, emailed as a citable PDF.
Sources
¹ EU AI Act Article 99(4) — maximum administrative fine for prohibited AI practice violations: 7% of global annual turnover or €35M, whichever is higher. Article 99(3) sets 3% for other high-risk violations. This calculator uses 7% as the upper planning bound. Full text (EUR-Lex).
² Audit preparation ranges ($40K–$120K / year) based on SANS 2023 SOC 2 Cost Survey and HIMSS 2023 Cybersecurity Survey. Financial services and healthcare organizations typically fall in the upper half of this range due to regulatory density. Actual savings vary by maturity.
³ Axiom pricing estimate uses $2,000/month base platform fee plus $0.01 per attestation event. Agent event volume estimated at 500 events per agent per month for planning purposes. Actual cost depends on negotiated pilot terms.
Want the full standalone calculator? Open /roi ↗
20+ years as CFO and COO across nonprofits, education, and operating companies — running Federal Single Audits, GAAP compliance, ITGC controls, and multi-entity treasury across the US, UK, France, and Spain.
Spun out a $12M nonprofit from the Tides Foundation — built the entire financial, HR, and governance infrastructure from scratch, independently, on time. No team. No margin for error.
Before Axiom: built AI.FO — a production CFO-reasoning system with 2,000+ deterministic assertions, a sealed-snapshot architecture, and an audit-independent test harness. Every output provably derived. Every number traceable to its source.
That background made one thing obvious: AI agents running in regulated environments are a compliance disaster waiting to happen. Axiom is the fix.
We're opening Axiom to a small cohort of compliance-forward teams. Tell us about your use case and we'll reach out directly.