Only 26% of Companies Say Governance Frameworks Are Fully Aligned With AI Adoption

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Only a quarter of organizations have fully aligned AI governance

More research is reinforcing the notion that organizations are using AI but aren’t governing it as effectively as they might wish. A new survey by Smarsh and FTI Consulting found that 55% of enterprises are actively deploying AI while only 26% reported their governance frameworks are fully aligned with the pace of implementation. However, it’s not all bad news, as a majority (57%) say their governance practices are keeping pace though gaps exist.

“With continuing AI adoption, individual employees will seek to upskill on their own to adapt,” Jonathan Roberts, senior director of risk and compliance at FTI Technology, said in the report. “For some organizations, this may lead to increased risks to data privacy, data protection, and corporate governance through shadow IT apps, uneducated use, and hallucinated outcomes that result in liability implications.”

For the survey, FTI spoke with 114 decision makers and leaders involved in digital communications monitoring and archiving solutions across enterprise, corporate and public sector organizations in the US and reported insights from 47 enterprise-level decision makers working in the financial services, insurance or banking sectors.

Here’s a look at some other key findings:

• 32% of organizations regularly extract insights and value from archived data.
• 43% of enterprises maintain a centralized, continuously updated inventory of AI agents, APIs and third-party integrations.
• 47% say compliance is actively shaping and providing early-stage decision support for business and technology initiatives.

44% of companies have not seen ROI with AI in GRC — yet

Most companies are using AI in GRC operations, but questions over trust and value creation may be hindering more widespread adoption, according to a survey by Onspring.

The survey of 126 GRC practitioners in IT, risk and compliance, finance, operations and legal across North America found that while 85% of companies have adopted AI, the biggest segment (44%) remain in the experimental phase. Only about 14% have embedded the technology across workflows, according to the survey.

Despite the high level of adoption, the return on investment from AI in GRC programs is causing hesitation by companies, the survey found. About 44% reported that they have not seen a return on investment from AI in GRC with less than a fifth (17%) saying they are seeing demonstrable ROI from AI investments in their GRC programs.

Companies also reported that concerns are slowing progression for full AI integration. Respondents identified data privacy and accuracy as well as hallucinations as the top concerns limiting AI adoption at 29% and 25%, respectively.