2025: The Year GRC Went AI-First

Introduction

2025 marked a defining moment for governance, risk, and compliance. What had long been discussed as a future ambition became an operational reality: GRC went AI-first. Across risk, compliance, audit, cyber, and third-party risk programs, organizations have moved beyond experimentation and started to embed AI directly into their everyday workflows to drive efficiency, insight, and measurable outcomes.

In this recap, we highlight the most impactful AI-first advancements delivered across MetricStream’s Connected GRC platform in 2025, how customers are implementing these capabilities, the key conversations shaping GRC today, and what these shifts signal for the future of the GRC landscape.

AI-First Enhancements on the MetricStream Platform

In 2025, we delivered multiple major product releases focused on making GRC simpler, faster, and more intuitive. Our investments focused on enhancing user experience and navigation, streamlining form and workflow changes, and improving performance across the platform.

Most importantly, we embedded trusted AI directly into everyday GRC workflows, helping teams reduce manual effort, prioritize what matters most, and act with greater confidence. These capabilities are available to customers today, reinforcing our commitment to being a responsive, resilience-focused GRC partner.

Our customers have begun adopting AI across high-impact use cases, including:

• Risk and control rationalization
• Intelligent prioritization of issues and actions
• Automated document and evidence analysis
• AI-driven issue and action recommendations

Together, these efforts helped organizations reduce operational costs while significantly improving visibility, program maturity, and executive confidence. The result was not just faster processes, but stronger, outcome-driven GRC programs aligned to business priorities.

How Are Organizations Using AI in GRC?

As organizations look ahead, AI adoption in GRC is becoming more pragmatic and purpose-driven. Leaders are focused on addressing day-to-day operational challenges while meeting expectations for information security, governance, and cost.

Purpose-built AI is expected to transform core GRC activities, including:

• Risk identification, assessment, and scoring
• Regulatory change monitoring
• Control testing and continuous assessments
• Evidence gathering and policy updates
• Audit narrative generation
• Third-party risk and due diligence

We are seeing particularly strong interest in five high-value AI use cases:

1. Auto-populated fields and templates to reduce manual work
2. Autonomous workflows that eliminate delays and handoffs
3. Automated data gathering across systems for continuous insights
4. Intelligent recommendations and summarization beyond standard reporting
5. AI agents for administration, support, quality assurance, and upgrades

Collectively, these innovations have the potential to eliminate 80–90% of repetitive GRC tasks—dramatically improving productivity, adoption, and consistency across the business.

Product Strategy and Execution: Becoming an AI-First Organization

2025 also marked MetricStream’s internal transformation into an AI-first organization. Teams across product, engineering, customer success, and operations adopted AI to automate routine work, accelerate development cycles, and improve efficiency.

This shift has enabled us to move faster, innovate more effectively, and deliver greater value to customers, ensuring MetricStream remains one of the most agile and forward-looking GRC partners in the industry.

GRC Summits: AI at the Centre of the Conversation

Our 13th Annual GRC Summits, held in London and Las Vegas, reflected the industry’s growing focus on AI-driven GRC. More than 350 GRC leaders gathered for peer-to-peer discussions on the impact of AI on governance, risk, compliance, and resilience.

At the London Summit, the theme Experience the Power of AI and Resilience brought forward practical insights on simplifying GRC through intelligence and automation. Executives and practitioners emphasized that AI isn’t just a future possibility, but is already enabling real, measurable impact through autonomous policy mapping, smarter control testing, and real-time alerting, helping teams focus on strategic work rather than manual tasks.

In Las Vegas, conversations took an engaging turn as they explored how AI agents and human expertise work together to accelerate outcomes. Attendees experienced live demonstrations of AI agents performing tasks such as risk creation, audit evidence gathering, and automated reporting, showcasing how AI can act as a trusted collaborator while reinforcing the need for robust governance and human oversight.

Across both events, speakers highlighted the importance of collaboration and connectedness in modern GRC, illustrating that while AI technologies elevate capability, success depends on integrated processes and cross-functional alignment.

Customers, including Zurich Insurance, Nordea, Vodacom, IQ-EQ, Hargreaves Lansdown, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, and California State University, Chico, shared real-world stories of how AI is helping them drive efficiency and resilience.

We also celebrated excellence through the GRC Journey Awards, recognizing standout programs from organizations such as Shell, Fitch Ratings, Nationwide, and Mobily, along with visionary contributors from Siemens Energy, LIC, Singlife, Zurich Insurance, Nordea, Glencore, Vodacom, and others.

Read the in-depth recaps of the 2025 London and Las Vegas summits.

Analyst Recognition: Validating Our AI-First Strategy

Leading industry analysts continued to recognize MetricStream’s leadership in GRC throughout 2025. IDC, Verdantix, and Chartis reaffirmed our strength across both strategy and execution, citing our clear roadmap, AI investments, and demonstrated customer value.

• In Chartis Research’s Governance, Resilience, and Compliance Solutions 2025 report, MetricStream was ranked a Leader across all five assessed domains — Enterprise GRC, GRC Analytics, Regulatory Intelligence, Third-Party Risk, and Audit Risk — reflecting broad functional breadth and strong market momentum. MetricStream was also ranked in the 2025 Chartis RiskTech AI 50 report, ranking #1 in the Operational Risk and Audit categories. We also secured the top 12 spot in Chartis RiskTech100® 2026 report while being named Category Leader in Enterprise GRC and Audit.
• IDC’s Worldwide GRC Software 2025 MarketScape similarly positioned MetricStream as a Leader, emphasizing our robust strategic direction, comprehensive roadmap, and continued investment in AI to accelerate customer productivity, outcomes, and return on investment.
• Verdantix also named MetricStream a Leader in its 2025 Green Quadrant GRC Software Report, recognizing our strong capabilities in handling high volumes of data, feature richness, AI analytics and automation, regulatory change management, audit management, and governance and policy management.

Our high ratings for AI capabilities and GRC-specific platform innovation further validate our AI-first approach and underscore our connected platform’s ability to deliver scalable, flexible, and integrated risk and compliance management at enterprise scale.

Read more about MetricStream’s Analyst Recognition in 2025.

A New Brand for a New Era of GRC

2025 also was the year we unveiled our refreshed brand identity and vision, anchored by our new tagline: GRC Simplified. Outcomes Amplified. This evolution reflects a fundamental shift in how organizations expect GRC to work: less complexity, faster value, and outcomes that matter to the business.

At the core of this refresh is our AI-first Connected GRC strategy. We are simplifying GRC through a more intuitive, modern user experience, faster and easier configuration of forms and workflows, and greater flexibility to adapt as risk and regulatory requirements evolve. At the same time, we are amplifying outcomes by embedding trusted AI directly into everyday workflows, reducing manual effort, accelerating decision-making, and delivering intelligent recommendations that help teams focus on what matters most.

The result is a GRC platform designed to foster confidence, enabling organizations to move faster, operate with greater resilience, and leverage GRC as a strategic advantage.

Read the story behind MetricStream’s brand refresh and evolution.

Advancing the Conversation: AI in GRC Thought Leadership

Throughout 2025, we deepened our thought leadership on AI in GRC through a robust portfolio of blogs, eBooks, and podcasts, offering practical guidance on how organizations can responsibly adopt AI while strengthening governance, risk, compliance, and resilience.

MetricStream’s leadership team, including Marc Levine, CEO; Gaurav Kapoor, Co-Founder and Vice Chairman; and Raghuram Srinivas, Head of Product, shared detailed perspectives on the company’s AI-first strategy across several podcasts. Listen here.

Our AI in GRC blog series examines critical and emerging themes, including AI-related regulatory and policy developments, the rising risks of unmanaged AI usage, and the strategic evolution of AI within GRC programs. It also highlights practical use cases and key risk considerations for applying AI in GRC. Check out the blogs below, which address these topics in detail.

• AI Regulation Trends and AI Policies Across the US, UK, and EU
• Shadow AI: The Silent Cyber Risk
• The Future of GRC in an AI-Driven World
• Managing Complex Risks with Intelligent ERM Powered by AI
• Why AI and Automation Are Critical for Compliance Success
• Insider Risks in the AI Age, The Impact of AI on GRC: Key Insights for Risk Leaders
• AI in GRC: Your Top FAQs Answered

Complementing this thought leadership, our eBook series provided deeper, action-oriented frameworks for GRC leaders. Titles included:

• 6 Critical Factors to Build an Intelligent RCSA Framework
• Smarter GRC Starts with AI, Resilient GRC by Design: Building a Resilience Strategy with AI
• Why Automation Is the Future of Compliance

Together, these resources helped organizations understand not just why AI matters for GRC—but how to operationalize it across risk assessment, compliance execution, and enterprise resilience.

This growing body of work reflects our belief that education, transparency, and practical guidance are essential as organizations navigate the next phase of AI adoption; balancing innovation with accountability, trust, and regulatory confidence.

Looking Ahead to 2026 and Beyond

If 2025 was the year GRC went AI-first, the years ahead will be defined by how effectively organizations turn AI-driven insights into action. With trusted technology, integrated platforms, and a resilience-first mindset, GRC leaders are well-positioned to move from compliance to confidence and from risk management to strategic advantage.

Interested in seeing how AI-first GRC works in practice?

Explore how MetricStream’s AI-first GRC solutions can help you drive smarter decisions, stronger resilience, and measurable outcomes. Request a demo today.

Want a forward-looking perspective on what’s next?

Discover what lies ahead for risk and compliance leaders. Read our eBook on the 10 GRC trends shaping 2026 and beyond.