How the Digital.ai AppSec Team Handles Compliance: From Manual Effort to Automated Governance

For teams delivering software in highly regulated industries, compliance isn’t optional—it’s mission-critical. Healthcare, finance, and automotive software must meet rigorous international standards like ISO 13485 and ISO 26262. Yet, ensuring full traceability, documented approvals, and audit readiness has traditionally meant one thing: slow, manual, and expensive. 

At Digital.ai, our Application Security (AppSec) team faced these challenges head-on. But our solution didn’t stop at streamlining compliance. By combining Digital.ai Release (for automated, auditable workflows) with Digital.ai App Protection (for mobile, web, and desktop runtime security), we created a blueprint for end-to-end secure and compliant delivery. 

This wasn’t just about passing audits—it was about building trust, governance, and efficiency in every release.

The Challenge: Governance Without Velocity Loss 

Before Digital.ai Release, the AppSec team relied on wikis, spreadsheets, and manual checklists. This resulted in: 

• Fragmented documentation scattered across tools
• Traceable workflows have been enormously expensive
• Audit prep taking days of evidence gathering
• Compliance ownership gaps that increase risk 

For engineering leaders, this was a drag on productivity. For compliance leaders, it was a potential regulatory time bomb.

The Solution: Built-In Governance + Application Security 

With Digital.ai Release, AppSec rebuilt its processes around: 

• Standardized, version-controlled workflows that enforce compliance steps
• Role-based approvals with auditable logs
• Embedded testing and verification gates
• Continuous evidence collection for audits 

As Cole Herzog, Director of Engineering for AppSec, put it: 

“Prepping for an audit used to take us days. Now it’s a few clicks. Every approval, every change—it’s all traceable in the system. And with App Protection in the mix, every release is as secure as it is compliant.”

Measurable Outcomes

• Audit prep time cut from days to hours
• Cross-functional friction is reduced with shared visibility

• Errors in documentation nearly eliminated 

Use Cases That Matter

• Regulated release management with automated evidence collection
• ISO audit support with end-to-end traceability
• Milestone-based planning with enforced approval gates

The Strategic Takeaway 

This transformation proves that compliance doesn’t have to slow innovation. By embedding governance and compliance into delivery workflows—not bolting them on afterward—teams can deliver software that is secure, compliant, and fast. 

Digital.ai’s combined Release and App Protection solutions offer a template for any organization struggling with compliance and security in complex, regulated environments: automate governance, enforce policies by design, and protect your applications from the inside out.

Want to learn more? Read the full whitepaper: Digital.ai AppSec Compliance Transformation Using Digital.ai Release.