The Road Ahead: Key GRC Trends Shaping 2025
- GRC
- 08 January 25
Introduction
2024 was marked by escalating risks on multiple fronts, rapidly evolving regulations, and increasing cost of cyber-attacks. There was a 75% increase in cyber attacks by the 3rd quarter of 2024 with the average cost of data breach reaching USD 4.5 million.
Risks were not limited to just cybersecurity threats and bad actors. Geopolitical tensions and wars around the world led to disruptions like the Houthi attacks on critical shipping routes, impacting supply chains and global trade. And the escalating climate crisis added to the risks facing the world with insured losses from natural disasters exceeding USD 135 billon this year, which also went down as the hottest year in recorded history. AI proved to be a double-edged sword – powering new strategies and unlocking business transformation on one hand and introducing new risks and empowering bad actors to launch increasingly sophisticated attacks on the other. Amidst this, regulators continued to introduce new rules and modify existing ones to meet emerging challenges. This added to organizations’ governance, risk and compliance (GRC) challenges.
As we step into 2025, it is important to understand the trends shaping the risk landscape, so that you can craft your risk and compliance agenda to effectively mitigate the risks and cash in on the opportunities.
Key Trends Shaping GRC in 2025
Resilience in the Spotlight: Operational resilience has been a key focus area for regulators and organizations alike. But 2024 saw heightened scrutiny and attention on cyber and operational resilience as the risk landscape grew in severity. Extreme climate events, geopolitical tensions and IT outages caused serious disruption across sectors and geographies and as a result, regulators and organizations want to ensure resilience against such incidents and aid quick recovery.
Most recent regulations focused strongly on resilience –
- EU's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA)
- EU’s Cyber Resilience Act (CRA)
- UK's operational resilience policies issued by the Bank of England, Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority
- The US SEC cybersecurity rules stressed on greater accountability and transparency around cyber incidents
- The interagency paper on ‘Sound Practices to Strengthen Operational Resilience’ by the Federal Reserve Board (FRB), the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC)
- Singapore’s operational resilience guidelines
- Hong Kong’s Supervisory Policy Manual on Operational Resilience
- Canada’s Guideline E-21 on operational risk and resilience
In 2025, organizations will need to increase their focus on robust operational as well as cyber resilience approaches.
The AI Era Takes Shape: AI came of age in 2024 with most organizations benefitting from the productivity and efficiency gains the technology offered-
- 34 percent of organizations reported significant improvements in productivity and efficiency by leveraging AI
- 67 percent said they would increase investments in AI because of the value delivered. AI also holds tremendous promise for improving GRC processes.
AI is transforming the pace and face of business operations, enabling real-time data analysis, automating repetitive tasks, and driving predictive insights that enhance decision-making. However, this rapid advancement also introduces new risks like data breaches, algorithmic bias, and regulatory non-compliance. Robust governance and compliance frameworks are essential to mitigate these threats, ensuring businesses harness AI's potential responsibly while staying resilient in an evolving landscape. Security protocols must be revised for the AI era. Regulations like the EU’s AI Act aim to provide a foundation for ethical and risk aware use of AI and the coming years will see more regulatory action on this front. Organizations must establish robust AI governance processes to ethically and securely use AI for business transformation even as they comply with emerging regulations.
Third-Party Risks on the Rise – Some of the largest data breaches and disruptions over the last year were caused by vulnerabilities within third-party systems
- The major breaches at American Express and Fidelity Investments were the result of attacks on third party systems.
- A faulty software update at CrowdStrike disrupted flights, shutdown stock markets and banks, and even impacted healthcare systems.
Most modern organizations work within a large ecosystem of vendors and partners. And it is now abundantly clear that a vulnerability anywhere within this ecosystem can have far reading impact and consequences. New regulations emphasizing third-party risk management, include EU’s DORA, the updated Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) and US SEC’s Regulation S-P.
But given the complexity of corporate ecosystems this may be easier said than done. Organizations will now need to consider integrated and automated approaches to third-party risk management with diverse teams across the organization collaborating on risk monitoring and reporting. They will also need to work out mechanisms for monitoring and ensuring third party compliance as any compliance lapses at any part of the supply chain can impact the organization as well.
Regulatory Change Gains Momentum- 2024 saw strong continued regulatory momentum with regulators focusing on resilience, AI, cyber risk and security, third party risks and ESG. This trend is likely to continue in 2025 with regulations around key areas such as Trusted AI and Systems, Cybersecurity/Information Protection, Financial and Operational Resiliency, Financial Crime, Markets and Competition and Risk Governance and Controls. In addition to DORA, CRA, the EU AI Act, organizations will have to be prepared for several new regulations including the Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act (CIRCIA), several US state laws on data privacy, the EU Cyber Solidarity Act, the revised EU Product Liability Directive, the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), and the EU Deforestation Regulation.
Keeping pace with this complex landscape is incredibly challenging and non-compliance will only result in heavy penalties and significant damage to reputation. Organizations will need AI powered, automated regulatory change management and compliance solutions to ensure error free compliance with evolving regulations.
Integrated GRC in Demand – Traditionally, GRC operated in silos with varied risk taxonomies, libraries and even disjointed solutions across the organization. This approach can no longer work today given the complex and interconnected risk landscape that modern organizations operate within. Most organizations are now moving to automated and integrated GRC strategies. This involves:
- Standardized and common taxonomies
- Streamlined workflows
- Clear visibility across all processes and controls across the organization
- Data integrated into a single source of truth allowing stakeholders to gain a comprehensive understanding of risks, interdependencies across the organization
With integrated GRC solutions in place, teams are better equipped to analyze and prioritize risks, evaluate business impact and mitigate them more efficiently. The move to integrated GRC solutions will continue to accelerate over the next year.
Stay Ahead in 2025 with MetricStream Connected GRC
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- Build an agile and adaptable GRC strategy using a collaborative and intuitive platform.
- Leverage AI-powered workflows for predictive, data-driven decision-making.
- Efficiently identify, assess, monitor, and mitigate enterprise and operational risks.
- Safeguard your organization against IT and cyber threats with industry-recognized practices and frameworks.
- Enhance operational resilience to prevent, respond to, and recover from business disruptions more effectively.
- Simplify multi-regulatory compliance with a cohesive and integrated approach.
- Detect regulatory changes in real-time and streamline the management of compliance updates.
- Boost GRC performance with MetricStream AiSPIRE, offering cognitive insights to enhance existing programs through actionable data.
Want to learn more? Request a personalized demo now.
Frequently Asked Questions
The GRC landscape in 2026 is defined by agentic AI adoption, the integration of cyber risk into enterprise-wide governance programs, and the expansion of business continuity into full operational resilience, alongside intensifying regulatory complexity and the move toward continuous compliance replacing periodic audits. GRC in 2026 is more integrated, more automated, and far more operationally embedded than in previous years.
Regulatory obligations are increasing across cybersecurity, data protection, financial resilience, and operational risk, with regulators raising expectations around continuous oversight, transparency, and evidence-based compliance. Frameworks such as DORA, NIS2, and the EU AI Act continue to generate new obligations while existing regulations like GDPR and CCPA produce ongoing enforcement actions, making intelligent automation essential for keeping pace.
Cyber risk has moved firmly into the boardroom, with executive teams increasingly treating it as a core business concern rather than a technical one. The consequences of a significant cyber incident now extend across customer relationships, organizational reputation, operational stability, and financial performance, which has prompted boards to demand clearer visibility into how cyber exposure is being managed. At the same time, regulators continue to raise the bar on incident reporting obligations and resilience standards. An effective response requires cyber risk controls and awareness to be woven into the operations of every business function, not held within the IT department alone.
AI governance has become one of the fastest-growing sectors of GRC, with businesses creating formal AI system assessment processes and keeping records of AI decisions across the AI lifecycle. Organizations are deploying AI for risk scoring, automated regulatory change mapping, continuous control monitoring, and predictive analytics, while early adopters focus on fixing the data architecture that powers these tools to ensure accuracy and trust in AI-generated insights.
Business continuity planning focuses on recovering operations after a disruption, while operational resilience requires organizations to identify their most critical business services, set impact tolerances, and proactively test their ability to absorb shocks before disruptions occur. Cybersecurity and operational resilience have moved to the top of board-level agendas, and regulators now expect proof of resilience rather than simply the existence of a continuity plan.
GRC leaders are gaining greater board-level visibility as risk has become a strategic differentiator, with boards now expecting regular reporting on risk appetite, cyber exposure, regulatory developments, and resilience posture. Data quality, ethics, culture, and continuous compliance are becoming competitive differentiators, requiring GRC professionals to translate complex risk data into clear, business-relevant narratives that connect risk to organizational performance and strategic direction.
Third-party and supply chain risk management is becoming dynamic and integrated in 2026, as organizations recognize that supply chain vulnerabilities, vendor cyber breaches, and partner compliance failures carry direct consequences for their own regulatory standing. Regulatory bodies in multiple jurisdictions now require documented third-party risk assessments, ongoing monitoring, and contractual risk controls, turning third-party GRC from a best practice into a compliance requirement.
Fragmented data silos across ERM, compliance, and audit functions breed inaccuracies that erode trust in AI insights, making data architecture a key priority for GRC teams in 2026. Organizations investing in standardized risk taxonomies, clear data ownership, and real-time operational feeds into GRC platforms are creating the trusted foundation that AI-driven risk intelligence requires to be both accurate and defensible.
An integrated risk management program operates from a shared risk taxonomy and data model, connecting assessments, controls, issues, and audits across risk, compliance, cyber, and third-party functions so that control failures in one area are automatically visible to teams responsible for related risks. The future of GRC is moving rapidly toward intelligent, automated, and continuous governance models with centralized enterprise visibility, and integrated programs are the structural foundation that makes this possible.
GRC leaders should prioritize investments based on where risk concentration is highest relative to current capability gaps, with AI governance, continuous compliance, real-time oversight, and dynamic third-party risk management representing the areas of greatest urgency in 2026. Regulatory requirements establish the baseline, but organizations that invest beyond compliance in early warning capabilities, automation of labor-intensive processes, and integrated reporting will achieve the strongest returns.
