GRC Trends for 2025: Building Resilient Programs for the Future

The governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC) landscape has shifting in profound ways in 2025. GRC has evolved as a strategic enabler that CISOs and security leaders must transform into a cornerstone of resilience for their organizations.

Governance Trends: From Siloed Function to Strategic Enabler

Governance in 2025 is no longer about isolated oversight. Instead, GRC is becoming a central function that ties business strategy to security and risk management. The traditional three lines of defense (3LoD) model—front-line business activities, risk and compliance, and internal audit—remains foundational, but it has evolved into a more integrated ecosystem.

READ MORE: How to Apply the Three Lines of Defense 

Forward-looking organizations are embedding GRC into broader priorities such as privacy, digital trust, and resilience. Automation and AI-driven analytics now play a growing role, enabling real-time governance models that adapt as business conditions change. Moreover, governance increasingly intersects with functions like identity and access management (IAM), business continuity and disaster recovery (BCDR), incident response, and supply chain risk management.

For CISOs, the priority is to position GRC as an advisory function that aligns risk management with long-term business planning, ensures the first line of defense is empowered with self-service compliance tools, and expands oversight across a rapidly growing supply chain attack surface.

DOWNLOAD NOW: GRC Roles and Responsibilities Checklist 

Risk Trends: From Reporting to Actionable Outcomes

Risk reduction remains at the heart of GRC, but the methods for achieving it are evolving. While some organizations leverage quantitative frameworks such as FAIR or OCTAVE, most continue to rely on qualitative analysis and subject matter expertise.

This means moving beyond simple identification of risks to dynamic, automated workflows that reduce mean time to remediation. It also means integrating risk data across siloed functions, so IAM, incident response, and business continuity efforts share a common view of enterprise risk posture.

The supply chain continues to be a significant risk factor—supply chain-related breaches rose from 4% in 2020 to 15% in 2024, with anecdotal evidence suggesting even higher rates for some organizations. Automated monitoring and blended approaches to third-party risk management are becoming essential to stay ahead of this growing challenge.

READ MORE: Tips for Advancing your GRC Program 

Compliance Trends: Proactivity and Continuous Monitoring

Compliance obligations are accelerating and growing more complex, spanning global, regional, and industry-specific regulations. From updates to PCI DSS and NYDFS regulations to expanding privacy frameworks such as GDPR and CCPA, organizations face increasing demands that cannot be met with outdated, periodic assessments.

Instead, leading GRC teams are adopting continuous compliance monitoring, using AI and machine learning to dynamically identify control gaps and recommend corrective actions in real time. Generative AI, for example, is already streamlining audit preparation and testing processes, reducing the manual burden on compliance staff. Meanwhile, platforms such as the Unified Compliance Framework are helping consolidate overlapping requirements into integrated models that reduce complexity and improve consistency.

Building the Roadmap

Based on these trends, security leaders building GRC roadmaps should focus on several priorities:

• Shift from reporting to measurable risk reduction: Organizations must go beyond documenting risks and instead take coordinated, action-oriented steps to mitigate them across teams.
• Adopt a matrixed staffing model: Many GRC teams remain under-resourced. Leaders should upskill existing staff in automation and analytics while expanding responsibilities into the first line of defense with self-service capabilities.
• Leverage emerging technologies: From AI and machine learning to low-code/no-code platforms, technology should be applied to automate surveys, generate dashboards, and orchestrate remediation workflows.
• Integrate platforms and workflows: Connecting GRC systems with other enterprise tools ensures real-time oversight, faster corrective actions, and a more holistic view of organizational risk.

READ MORE: How to Establish GRC Practices for AI 

Avoiding Common Pitfalls

Even the best-designed GRC roadmaps can falter. Teams should avoid several common mistakes: focusing too heavily on reporting instead of risk treatment, failing to align with business peers, investing in tools without developing people, and ignoring rapidly evolving technologies like AI and automation.

As 2025 enters its final months, successful GRC programs will be those that embrace automation, integration, and forward-looking strategies. The role of GRC has transformed—from silo to collaboration hub, from point-in-time control to continuous oversight, and from a narrow technical focus to a true business enabler.

For CISOs, this means reimagining GRC as a cornerstone of resilience and growth, with governance, risk, and compliance activities embedded across IT, the first line of defense, and the extended supplier ecosystem. The future of GRC is not about compliance for its own sake—it’s about building stronger, more adaptive organizations that can thrive in the face of evolving risks. 

Download our Security Budget 2025 Benchmark Summary Report—and gain access to valuable insights and guidance to overcome budget obstacles.

Take our CISO Comp and Budget Survey in less than 10 minutes and receive career-defining data and other valuable insights and data sets.

Security staff professionals can take our 2025 Cybersecurity Staff Compensation and Career Benchmark Survey.

Although reasonable efforts will be made to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in our blog posts, no liability can be accepted by IANS or our Faculty members for the results of any actions taken by individuals or firms in connection with such information, opinions, or advice.