Our Story

A Kitchen Table, a Question, and Two Very Different Perspectives

AIQA Global started the way most good ideas do: with an argument. In 2024, a father and son sat at a kitchen table in Miami, looked at the same landscape of enterprise AI, and arrived at the same conclusion from completely different directions.

James Malackowski had spent four decades proving that intangible assets could be measured and priced. As co-founder of Ocean Tomo, he built the patented OTR™ PatentRatings system and launched the Ocean Tomo 300® Patent Index on the New York Stock Exchange — a rules-based equity index that outperformed the S&P 500 by more than 1,600 basis points in its first decade. He’d earned the IP Hall of Fame (2022) and the LES Gold Medal (2025) — only the seventh person in history to hold both.

Chase Malackowski had spent his formative years studying disruption. He’d turned down Notre Dame — his father’s alma mater, with a scholarship — to attend USC’s Iovine and Young Academy, a program founded by Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre at the convergence of technology, design, and the business of innovation. For a Notre Dame family, choosing USC was more than an academic decision. It was a statement about how he intended to work.

What they agreed on: the AI economy was missing something fundamental. Trillions were being deployed to build, train, and integrate AI systems. Every industry James had advised and every disruption Chase had studied was accelerating. But no one had built a credible, independent system for measuring how well organizations actually governed their AI.

Georgetown: Same Classroom, Different Generations

In 2025, James and Chase both enrolled in the inaugural cohort of Georgetown University’s Master’s program in AI Management — the first accredited program of its kind. Father and son, reading the same texts, debating the same case studies, surrounded by senior executives and technologists from across the country.

The program sharpened the idea. As they studied AI risk frameworks, governance models, and the regulatory landscape, the gap became impossible to ignore: credit quality had its rating agencies, patent portfolios had Ocean Tomo, and AI governance had nothing. No comparable, quantitative standard existed.

James took a leave of absence at the end of that first semester. The academic foundation was laid. Now the real work began.

From Concept to Company

Drawing on his intellectual property expertise, James led the development of the AIQ Score™ — a proprietary methodology assessing enterprise AI quality across five dimensions and 250 data points. Chase, continuing his graduate studies in AI-driven decision making and ethical AI, brought the perspective of a generation that sees AI not as a tool to manage but as an environment to govern.

In November 2025, the team filed its first U.S. patent application covering the core AI governance rating methodology. A second patent application followed, addressing AI governance-based equity indices — once again following the Ocean Tomo playbook: protect the methodology, then build the market.

With the intellectual property secured, they assembled an Advisory Board drawing from Georgetown, Harvard, USC, and senior leaders in cybersecurity and insurance. They put the methodology to work with beta clients across investment management, legal services, and technology.

In March 2026, AIQA Global launched publicly. Within days, the company signed its first commercial engagement — including placement of an AIQA analyst as an independent member of the client’s Advisory Board, a service we call Embedded AI Advisory.

An AI-Native Company

From our founding, AIQA has committed to practicing the governance we prescribe. Every role within the company — at every level, including the Board — first considers an AI-based solution. But always with proper governance. Always with a human in the loop.

This isn’t a marketing position. It’s an operating principle that gives us firsthand experience in the discipline we rate. We believe you cannot credibly assess what you have not yourself practiced.

What We Believe

AI governance is not a constraint on innovation — it is the condition that makes sustainable innovation possible. The organizations that will lead the next era of the economy are not those that adopt AI the fastest, but those that adopt it the best. Those that can demonstrate quality will earn the trust of investors, the confidence of insurers, and the oversight assurance that boards demand. Those that cannot will pay a price measured in higher premiums, restricted capital, and competitive disadvantage.

We built Ocean Tomo’s patent ratings because the market needed someone to prove that patent quality could be measured. We’re building the AIQ Score™ because the AI economy needs the same proof — and we believe we’re the team to deliver it.