# Enterprise AI gateway checklist: security, control, and scale

URL: https://infro.io/blog/enterprise-ai-gateway-checklist
Author: INFRO Editorial (https://infro.io/blog/editorial)
Publisher: INFRO
Published: 2026-08-17
Last modified: 2026-09-11
Last reviewed: 2026-09-11 (next review due 2026-12-10)
Topic: Security and governance
Format: Checklist

> An enterprise AI gateway should create one enforceable boundary for model access, data policy, routing, reliability, audit and spend. Evaluate published controls and contractual evidence, not a long model list or an architecture diagram alone.

Run this with the vendor in the room. Each item should be answered with a document, a console screen or a test you watched — not a slide. Where a vendor says "on the roadmap", record it as not in place.

## Identity and access

- [ ] Organization, project and environment boundaries, with keys scoped to each.
- [ ] Role-based access that separates who can change policy from who can read request data.
- [ ] Key rotation with an overlap window, and revocation that takes effect immediately.
- [ ] Model allowlists at more than one scope, with the refusing scope named in the error.
- [ ] Every privileged change recorded with actor and timestamp, including emergency access.
- [ ] Single sign-on and provisioning, if your policy requires them — confirm what is available today, not what is planned.

## Data path and retention

- [ ] A list of every party that can receive prompts, outputs, logs or media, including the gateway vendor's own subprocessors.
- [ ] Prompt and completion capture off by default, with a retention window you choose and can shorten.
- [ ] Encryption of stored provider credentials, and confirmation that credentials are never displayed after they are saved.
- [ ] A DPA, a subprocessor list and a plain statement of which certifications are held today.
- [ ] Where data may be processed geographically, and whether that is enforced or merely configured.

## Reliability and operations

- [ ] Failover behaviour you have watched: a provider fails in a test environment and the trace shows what happened.
- [ ] The rule for streaming responses once output has started — retried, or surfaced as an error.
- [ ] A policy on cross-model substitution. Availability does not justify an unevaluated downgrade.
- [ ] Request records exportable through an API on your own schedule.
- [ ] Incident communication: where the vendor reports problems and how quickly.

## Financial governance

Under a bring-your-own-key model your providers invoice you directly, so the gateway's job is attribution and control, not billing.

- [ ] Estimated cost per request, attributable to organization, project, key, model and your own metadata.
- [ ] Your negotiated provider rates usable in those estimates, rather than list prices only.
- [ ] A way to compare estimates against what your providers actually billed.
- [ ] Budgets with both alert thresholds and hard ceilings, at more than one scope.
- [ ] The vendor's own charges stated separately from model spend, with no percentage taken from provider usage.

## Revision history

- 2026-09-11: Turned each section into a verifiable checklist, replaced pricing and reconciliation wording from INFRO's retired model with the provider-invoice model, removed the promotional template sections and generic FAQ.