Last updated: June 2026
A global shift is well underway. Compliance teams are no longer just box-tickers. They are becoming key contributors to business strategy, and in 2026, that shift has accelerated.
Compliance is Evolving Fast
Compliance has long been seen as a necessary overhead – important for avoiding penalties, but often at odds with innovation and agility. That perception has fundamentally changed.
A report from the International Compliance Association (ICA), Navigating the Future: The Role of Governance, Risk and Compliance in Modern Business, surveyed 383 GRC professionals across 87 countries and found a profession that is maturing, embracing technology, and becoming increasingly embedded in strategic decision-making. Those findings have only sharpened in the year since, with the Hyperproof 2026 IT Risk and Compliance Benchmark Report, drawing on 1,002 GRC leaders surveyed in late 2025, confirming that the transformation is now firmly operational, not aspirational.
For UK businesses, especially those in regulated sectors, the implications are immediate.
GRC Is No Longer About Enforcing Rules
One of the most telling findings from the ICA report is that 28% of GRC professionals now rank “understanding the business” as their top priority, ahead of regulatory interpretation or staff training.
That reflects a fundamental shift in what compliance functions are actually being asked to do. GRC is no longer primarily about checking whether policies are being followed. It is about advising leadership, enabling innovation, and helping the business navigate uncertainty with confidence.
Today’s compliance leads are expected to speak both commercial and regulatory languages, and to contribute to long-term success, not just short-term adherence. At Dr Logic, this mirrors what we see across our clients: the businesses managing risk most effectively are those that have embedded compliance into strategic conversations, not confined it to a separate function.
AI in GRC: From Experimental to Operational
In mid-2025, the picture on AI adoption in GRC was strikingly uneven. The ICA report found that only 1.6% of firms had fully integrated AI into their compliance processes, despite 51% viewing AI advancements as the biggest driver of change over the next five years.
By early 2026, the landscape had shifted materially. The Hyperproof 2026 IT Risk and Compliance Benchmark Report found that 97% of GRC professionals are now using AI to streamline their workflows, a near-complete reversal of the experimental posture seen in 2025. The biggest performance advantage comes when AI is embedded directly into a GRC platform that can apply intelligence to controls, evidence, and assessments, rather than deployed as a disconnected tool sitting alongside existing processes.
What has not changed is the centrality of governance. The ICA report identified “AI governance and ethics” as the top area requiring attention, ahead of data privacy and cyber security. That finding remains as relevant today as it was then. The businesses gaining the most from AI adoption are those that have built the right oversight frameworks alongside their tools, ensuring transparency, accountability, and ethical alignment from the outset. This is where GRC teams provide significant value, helping businesses move fast with AI without exposing themselves to regulatory or reputational risk.
GRC Budgets Are Growing for the Second Consecutive Year
In a challenging economic climate, most functions are under pressure to do more with less. GRC is an exception.
The Hyperproof 2026 report found that the majority of respondents expect GRC budgets to increase for the second year running. The ICA’s earlier research showed that over 68% of respondents had seen investment in GRC increase slightly or significantly over the preceding three years. Both data points point in the same direction: organisations are recognising that compliance capability is not a cost to be minimised but a function to be invested in.
This is partly a response to regulatory complexity. The UK regulatory environment remains demanding, and despite political rhetoric around deregulation, the ICA found that only 4.7% of firms are actually removing compliance controls. In practice, a deregulating environment often increases the workload for GRC teams — who must carefully assess, interpret, and respond to every change without losing sight of their obligations or their values.
The Hyperproof data adds a further dimension: 58% of organisations that experienced a breach in 2025 anticipate spending more time on IT risk management and compliance in 2026, reflecting how incidents compound ongoing operational burden well beyond the immediate response. Prevention and preparation are materially cheaper than the aftermath.
Centralisation Is Becoming the Standard
One of the clearest structural shifts in GRC over recent years is the move toward centralisation. The Hyperproof 2026 report found that 86% of organisations now have a centralised team managing GRC, compared with only 14% managing it through individual business units or in siloes.
This matters for outcomes. Earlier Hyperproof research found that organisations managing IT risk in ad-hoc or siloed ways were significantly more likely to experience a data breach than those using integrated, automated approaches. The structural decision, whether GRC is a centralised function or a distributed afterthought, has a direct bearing on security and compliance performance.
For SMEs, the practical implication is that GRC does not require a large dedicated team, but it does require clear ownership, documented processes, and tools that give leadership visibility across the risk landscape. Fragmented, knowledge-dependent arrangements, where one person knows where the policies are stored and one external provider understands the systems, are increasingly difficult to sustain as regulatory expectations rise.
Culture Remains a Compliance Advantage
One of the most striking findings from the ICA report is that culture, not fear of penalties, is the primary driver of compliant behaviour. Respondents identified company values and internal culture as the biggest motivators for doing business the right way.
This matches what consistently separates high-performing organisations from those that treat compliance as a reactive exercise. When compliance is embedded in how a business operates, in its values, its hiring, its decision-making, it becomes a competitive advantage rather than an overhead. These businesses are more resilient, more trusted by clients and partners, and better equipped to handle uncertainty when it arrives.
The GRC Professional of 2026: Strategic, Human-Centric, AI-Literate
The skills defining the next generation of compliance leaders are not primarily technical. The ICA report found that 29% of GRC professionals ranked relationship management as the most critical skill for the future, compared with just 2.5% who prioritised technical compliance expertise.
That framing has hardened in 2026. As AI handles more of the routine work, transaction monitoring, risk assessments, control testing, the distinctively human contributions of GRC professionals become more valuable: building trust across the organisation, advising on decisions where regulatory and commercial considerations intersect, and providing the ethical oversight that automated systems cannot supply on their own.
The GRC professional of 2026 is expected to:
- Guide strategic business decisions, not just review them after the fact
- Assess emerging risks, including AI-specific risks, before they materialise
- Shape governance frameworks that keep pace with technology adoption
- Bridge the gap between innovation teams and regulatory requirements
- Communicate risk in terms that resonate with boards and leadership, not just compliance functions
Compliance Is Not Just Protection. It Is a Strategic Edge
The evidence from both the ICA and Hyperproof research points in the same direction: compliance has matured into a strategic business function. It is not just about staying on the right side of regulation. It is about helping businesses thrive in complex, fast-changing environments — and doing so in a way that builds trust with clients, partners, and regulators alike.
You can read the full ICA report here.
FAQs
What does it mean for GRC to be a strategic function rather than a compliance function?
A strategic GRC function advises on business decisions rather than simply auditing them after the fact. GRC professionals in this role help leadership assess risk before committing to new initiatives, govern emerging technologies like AI, and contribute directly to how the business achieves its objectives. The ICA found that 28% of GRC professionals now rank understanding the business as their top priority, ahead of traditional compliance tasks.
Is AI adoption in GRC still at an early stage?
Not in 2026. The Hyperproof 2026 IT Risk and Compliance Benchmark Report found that 97% of GRC professionals now use AI in their workflows. The shift from experimentation to operational deployment happened quickly over the course of 2025. The remaining challenge is governance: the biggest performance gains come when AI is embedded into an integrated GRC platform, not deployed as a standalone tool without oversight frameworks around it.
Should SMEs invest in GRC, or is it only relevant for large organisations?
GRC is relevant at every business size, and the investment required scales accordingly. SMEs do not need large dedicated compliance teams, but they do need clear ownership, documented processes, and visibility across their risk landscape. Hyperproof’s research consistently shows that fragmented, reactive approaches to risk management result in materially higher breach rates. A structured GRC approach, even a lightweight one, is both more cost-effective and more resilient than managing risk through individual knowledge and informal arrangements.
