Top 10 Risk and Compliance Resolutions for GRC Leaders in 2026

Introduction

The start of a new year creates a natural pause. Personally, for me, the New Year is a moment to step back, take stock, and recalibrate priorities.

This holds true for organizations across sectors running governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) programs as well; it’s an opportunity to reassess their resilience strategies in the face of an increasingly complex world.

As organizations prepare to strengthen their capabilities and harness the transformative potential of cutting-edge technologies, they will need to continue to brace for the unknown unknowns driven by a host of factors, including geopolitical conflicts, economic uncertainty, intensifying cyber threats, supply-chain disruptions, and evolving regulatory demands. According to several recent global risk assessments, including the IIA’s Risk in Focus report and the Allianz Risk Barometer, geopolitical uncertainty and digital disruption, along with cyber risk, are the top concerns among practitioners and leaders worldwide. So, while leadership and top management review the past year and chalk out business goals and strategies for the year ahead, GRC leaders should take this opportunity to rethink their approach and implement changes in processes, tools, and technologies that will boost their organization’s resilience.

Against this backdrop, here are 10 key risk and compliance resolutions for GRC leaders to help successfully navigate 2026.

1. Turn AI governance from policy into practice

AI governance can no longer stop at principles and policies. In 2026, risk and compliance leaders should focus on operationalizing AI governance end-to-end by maintaining an enterprise inventory of AI use cases, embedding risk and compliance checks into model and product lifecycles, and implementing ongoing monitoring and observability. The goal is to ensure AI risks are actively managed in production and governance outcomes are clearly tied to business performance, trust, and resilience.

2. Talk about cyber risk in dollars and downtime

Cyber risk needs to be framed in terms that boards and executives can act on. This means translating technical vulnerabilities into business impact, such as financial loss, operational disruption, customer harm, and regulatory exposure. By quantifying cyber risk and aligning it with the enterprise risk appetite, GRC leaders can enable more informed decision-making and better prioritize security investments.

3. Get ready for agentic AI

Agentic and autonomous AI systems are rapidly being used in the real world. Risk, compliance, audit and cyber risk agents are capable of autonomously monitoring risks, orchestrating controls, initiating remediation, and escalating issues. To realize this value responsibly, GRC leaders must define clear mandates for what agents can and cannot do, embedding human-in-the-loop oversight for critical judgments, and establishing governance guardrails around access, testing, and escalation.

4. Shift from reactive risk reviews to real-time insight

Point-in-time assessments and annual reviews are no longer sufficient in a fast-moving risk environment. Organizations should move toward continuous risk and compliance assessments leveraging real-time data feeds, automated control testing, and dynamic risk indicators. This shift enables earlier detection of issues, faster remediation, and greater confidence in the organization’s risk posture between audits.

5. Design compliance to support resilience, not just audits

Regulations such as DORA and NIS2 signal a clear shift from compliance checklists to demonstrated operational resilience. Risk and compliance programs should integrate scenario testing, recovery objectives, and third-party resilience directly into their workflows. By aligning compliance efforts with measurable resilience outcomes, organizations can meet regulatory expectations while strengthening their ability to withstand disruption.

6. Stop running compliance on spreadsheets

Manual, spreadsheet-driven compliance processes create inefficiency, increase error, and limit scalability. In 2026, organizations should prioritize integrated and automated GRC platforms that connect risk, compliance, IT, security, and third-party systems. Automation not only accelerates evidence collection and reporting but also frees teams to focus on higher-value risk analysis and decision support.

7. Upgrade third-party risk from annual checks to continuous oversight

Third-party and supply-chain risks remain a top concern, particularly for critical and technology-dependent services. Leading organizations are moving beyond periodic assessments to continuous monitoring, concentration risk analysis, and stronger contractual requirements for resilience and transparency. Where risk is elevated, oversight must extend beyond direct vendors to key sub-service providers.

8. Measure GRC by outcomes, not activity

Traditional GRC metrics often focus on activity volume, including the number of controls tested, issues logged, or assessments completed. In 2026, leaders should emphasize outcome-based KPIs that demonstrate real impact, such as reductions in unmitigated risk, faster containment of control failures, and increased automation of critical controls. These metrics help clearly articulate the value of GRC to executive stakeholders.

9. Make AI decisions explainable and defensible

As AI becomes embedded in risk, compliance, and business decision-making, explainability and auditability are no longer optional. Organizations should institutionalize documentation, model lineage, decision logs, and testing artifacts across the AI lifecycle. This ensures AI-driven outcomes can be explained to regulators, auditors, customers, and internal stakeholders with confidence.

10. Break down silos and design once for multiple regulations

Fragmented ownership and duplicative compliance efforts continue to slow organizations down. GRC leaders should work toward unified risk taxonomies, shared control libraries, and a single source of truth across functions. At the same time, controls and evidence should be designed once and reused across overlapping regulations, such as DORA, NIS2, SEC cyber rules, and local mandates, leading to reduced complexity and improved efficiency.

Looking Ahead!

2026 will test how effectively risk and compliance programs move from oversight to enablement, supporting innovation while protecting the organization from emerging risks. For GRC leaders, this moment calls for strong resolutions.

All the best with your 2026 risk and compliance resolutions! And here’s to a year of building stronger, more resilient organizations.

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