Governance teams face AI oversight strain, report finds

Diligent has published a global report showing governance and compliance teams are struggling with rising workloads and growing demands around AI oversight. The study found AI governance is now the top future skill identified by practitioners.

The report surveyed 309 senior practitioners across North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Europe and the UK. It focused on how corporate secretaries, general counsel and governance leaders manage entity compliance across jurisdictions.

The findings show a function under pressure from broader mandates, limited capacity and weak visibility into obligations. Nearly three-quarters of respondents said their remit had expanded over the past two years, while 46% said workloads were rising faster than headcount.

Technology constraints emerged as a central problem. Some 47% of respondents identified technology gaps and legacy systems as their biggest challenge, putting them level with regulatory complexity as a source of strain.

The figures also suggest operational risk is rising. More than half of respondents said they had experienced at least one near-miss compliance event in the past year, while only 19% said they had near-real-time visibility into their compliance obligations.

That leaves most teams working with delayed or incomplete information. Many still rely on spreadsheets to bridge data gaps, making it harder to present senior management and boards with a current view of governance risk.

AI oversight

AI governance stood out as the clearest emerging priority. Globally, 64% of practitioners said oversight of AI would be the most critical skill over the next three years, ranking it above traditional legal disciplines.

In the UK and Europe, that figure rose to about 70%, suggesting stronger regional emphasis on oversight and responsible adoption. The survey also found a more cautious attitude to automation in those markets than elsewhere.

Only 27% of respondents in the UK and Europe said they were comfortable with AI completing compliance actions without human approval, compared with 38% globally. Overall, opinion was almost evenly split, with 36% saying they would not be comfortable with AI carrying out basic actions without approval.

Use of AI is already established in many teams, however. The report found 58% of respondents had deployed AI somewhere in the function, and 69% of those users relied on general productivity tools rather than specialist compliance systems.

Board perception

The findings also point to a gap between how governance professionals see their role and how they think boards perceive it. More than half, 56%, described themselves as strategic advisers to the board, but only 17% believed their board saw them that way.

A further 52% said their boards underestimated the complexity of the entity function. That can leave governance work viewed as administrative rather than linked to risk management, capital structure and growth decisions.

The survey positions general counsel and company secretaries at the centre of this shift, as organisations try to manage a wider compliance burden while also deciding how AI should be used and governed. The findings suggest the role is becoming more prominent even as teams face practical limits in staffing and systems.

Amanda Carty, General Manager, Compliance, Diligent, said pressure on governance teams was intensifying. "Teams managing entity governance are facing more risk, more complexity, and higher expectations-all without more resources," Carty said.

She said the current environment was pushing organisations to rethink how governance work is organised. "The opportunity lies in how organisations respond. Strategic leaders are using this moment to modernise their operating model-connecting entity data, board oversight, and AI-driven execution to strengthen governance, support faster and more confident decision-making and elevate the function's role across the organization," Carty said.