Connected risk: The AI-driven convergence of audit, risk, and compliance

Artificial intelligence has evolved at a rapid pace—and so, too, has the risk landscape as a result.

AI touches every aspect and every department of an organization. This means that both its benefits and its risks are a shared responsibility across the entire business. The historical silos of audit, risk, and compliance are not conducive to managing the opportunities and challenges of AI. These teams must converge to take a connected risk approach that enhances organizational resilience and supports strategic business outcomes.

The evolving risk landscape, and why we need convergence now

Organizations today face a risk environment more complex, dynamic, and interconnected than ever before for three key reasons:

1. We’re no longer dealing with isolated threats. Instead, risks now cascade across domains—economic shocks trigger political unrest, which in turn fuels cyberattacks, ultimately disrupting supply chains. This interconnectivity magnifies the impact of each crisis, making traditional risk models insufficient.
2. GRC, audit, and cyber functions can no longer operate in silos. In this volatile environment, these teams must collaborate to anticipate emerging threats proactively. This means embedding risk thinking into decision-making, leveraging technology for early detection, and aligning risk appetite with long-term strategy.
3. We’re in an era of permacrisis, or a persistent state of disruption. Unlike in past crises with clear beginnings and endings, organizations must now shift from static risk assessments to real-time, scenario-based planning, like stress testing, dynamic risk modeling, and cultivating a culture of agility and resilience.

The siloed status quo across audit, compliance, and cybersecurity functions ultimately hinders the identification of interconnected risks and limits the organization's ability to respond quickly to emerging threats. As risk environments become increasingly complex and rapidly changing, integrating these areas is no longer just advantageous—it is essential. Addressing these challenges requires improved collaboration, communication, and integration of risk management efforts across all functions.

Key priorities: AI, cybersecurity, and TPRM

AI plays a crucial role in enhancing efficiency by automating and optimizing various processes, which leads to significant time and cost savings. It also provides deep insights through data analysis, helping organizations make more informed decisions.

However, the adoption of AI also brings new risks that must be carefully managed. These include ethical issues, concerns about data privacy, and the potential for biases in AI algorithms. A new study from technology security company Kiteworks found that just 17% of companies have automatic controls that keep employees from uploading sensitive information to public AI tools, and just 9% have an AI governance structure.

The rapid pace of AI adoption in business and its impact on not just IT infrastructure but also third-party risk has transformed cybersecurity into a pervasive risk that affects multiple areas within an organization. The interconnectedness of modern supply chains and business partnerships means that risks can arise from outside the organization, and managing these risks effectively requires collaboration with external partners. This looks like:

• Adhering to security protocols across the entire organization to maintain a strong and reliable defense against potential threats.
• Promptly reporting and escalating any suspicious activities is vital to allow for quick response to potential incidents, minimizing any possible damage.
• Collaborating to strengthen overall security posture, boost risk mitigation efforts, and improve organizational resilience.

Following these tips enables the rapid and coordinated responses now necessary across teams to effectively safeguard the organization against both cyber and third-party risks.

Breaking down silos: Collaboration best practices

Better integrating audit, risk, compliance, and cybersecurity functions ensures more effective risk management and promotes better collaboration across these functions. Here are five pivotal ways to help break down silos and foster true collaboration among audit, GRC, and security teams.

1. Establish shared objectives and language

Align teams around common goals (like organizational resilience or compliance readiness) and use consistent terminology to reduce miscommunication and foster a unified strategy. Developing shared risk taxonomies in particular is essential. By establishing a common language and clear definitions, you ensure everyone across different functions understands and manages risks consistently.

2. Implement integrated technology platforms

Adopt tools that allow for real-time information sharing, unified workflows, and cross-functional visibility into risk, compliance, and security activities. Leveraging technology in this way streamlines operations and supports better, faster decision-making.

3. Foster a culture of collaboration and transparency

Encourage cross-functional workshops, meetings, joint risk assessments, and shared metrics to build trust and establish regular touchpoints for knowledge exchange. These meetings promote ongoing communication and joint decision-making, which strengthens collaboration and alignment among teams.

4. Align on common metrics and KPIs

Aligning on core, shared, measurable goals provides a clear framework to track progress, identify gaps, and evaluate success effectively and consistently.

5. Promote a culture of transparency and trust

Creating a supportive environment is key to fostering effective teamwork and achieving our goals. Encourage open sharing of information and collaborative problem-solving.

Future outlook and actionable takeaways

The convergence of audit, risk, compliance, and cybersecurity will continue evolving in the future, largely due to innovations in AI as well as emerging challenges in the field. To make sure your organization is prepared, prioritize these five key areas:

1. Establish cross-functional risk committees to promote regular collaboration among diverse teams and encourage shared accountability for managing risks effectively.
2. Invest in AI-powered GRC tools to streamline governance processes and utilize analytics for improved efficiency and deeper insights.
3. Develop unified risk taxonomies to create a common language for consistent risk assessment and establish frameworks that unify risk management approaches across the organization.
4. Prioritize talent development, implementing upskilling programs to enhance team capabilities, while encouraging cross-training to build agile and tech-savvy teams ready for evolving challenges.
5. Strengthen data governance to ensure data quality and security—critical for reliable AI outputs—and promote integration to support comprehensive data management.

Together, these initiatives create a robust foundation for proactive and efficient risk management as AI takes over and cyberthreats become more common and more sophisticated.

About the authors

Melissa Pici works as the Global Governance, Risk, and Compliance Director at a global mobile telecom company.