As AI agents take on more operational responsibilities, the future of governance, risk and compliance may depend less on replacing people and more on redefining where their expertise creates value.
Artificial intelligence is beginning to change not just how people work, but the work they are expected to do. What started with tools that could summarise documents, draft content and answer questions is evolving into AI agents capable of interacting with enterprise systems, analysing information and completing defined activities within business workflows.
For governance, risk and compliance (GRC) professionals, this raises an important question. If AI can perform an increasing proportion of the activities traditionally undertaken by risk and compliance teams, what does that mean for the future of those roles?
The answer is more nuanced than the familiar debate about AI replacing jobs. Most professional roles combine administrative work, analysis, judgement, stakeholder engagement and decision-making. AI does not need to replace an entire role to change it significantly. It only needs to take responsibility for some of the activities within it.
The more useful question is therefore not simply whether AI will replace GRC professionals, but how their responsibilities will evolve as intelligent agents become part of everyday operations.
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In this discussion, we explore how AI is changing the nature of professional work, what that means for risk and compliance teams, and why human judgement and accountability remain central to effective AI adoption.
Until recently, most enterprise AI applications focused on helping people work more efficiently. A user might ask an AI assistant to summarise a policy, draft a report or explain a regulatory requirement. The technology provided information, but the person remained responsible for progressing the work.
Agentic AI introduces a different operating model.
Consider the process of responding to regulatory change. Rather than simply summarising a new requirement, an AI agent could compare it against existing obligations, identify potentially affected policies and controls, highlight gaps and initiate a governed workflow for further assessment.
Similarly, an agent could help analyse control testing results, triage incidents against established procedures, prepare management reporting or continuously monitor information for emerging risk indicators.
These capabilities do not automatically eliminate the need for risk and compliance professionals. They change where those professionals spend their time.
When technology can collect, organise and initially analyse information, people can focus more attention on interpreting the findings, challenging assumptions, understanding business implications and making informed decisions.
The first major impact of AI on GRC may therefore be a redistribution of responsibilities rather than the wholesale replacement of roles.
This changing relationship between people and technology has been a recurring theme throughout ReadiNow's Executive Roundtable series, which brings together senior governance, risk, compliance and resilience leaders from major Australian organisations.
One of the questions explored in these discussions is whether AI should replace specific GRC activities, augment existing teams or eventually operate as a governed function with clearly defined responsibilities.
Each approach presents different opportunities and challenges.
Information-intensive activities such as regulatory monitoring, reporting and initial risk analysis are natural candidates for greater automation. Other responsibilities, particularly those involving legal interpretation, material risk acceptance and strategic decisions, require more explicit human accountability.
As AI capabilities mature, organisations may also introduce processes where agents operate with greater autonomy. In these environments, people may no longer need to approve every individual step, provided permissions, decision boundaries, escalation requirements and oversight mechanisms are clearly established.
The challenge for GRC leaders is to determine which activities should be automated, which should be augmented and where human intervention remains essential.
This is not simply a technology decision. It is a question of operating model design, accountability and organisational trust.
The concept of keeping a human in the loop has become central to discussions about responsible AI. However, an approval step alone does not necessarily constitute meaningful oversight.
If a person is asked to approve an AI-generated recommendation without understanding the evidence, assumptions or reasoning behind it, the organisation may have introduced an additional process without improving governance.
This distinction is particularly important within GRC, where recommendations can influence regulatory obligations, financial exposure, operational resilience and risk acceptance.
An agent might recommend that a regulatory obligation is not applicable, identify a control as ineffective or suggest how an incident should be classified. Each recommendation may be useful, but its significance depends on the context in which it is applied.
Effective oversight requires professionals to understand what information the agent used, where uncertainty exists, whether the recommendation is consistent with organisational policy and when escalation is necessary.
As AI assumes more responsibility for information processing and preliminary analysis, the ability to question its conclusions may become one of the most important professional skills in GRC.
Our Executive Roundtable polling illustrates the gap between AI adoption and confidence in its governance.
In one session, 50% of participants reported that AI was already being used in at least some GRC activities, including 37.5% who said it had become part of several everyday processes. A further 25% were actively testing one or two use cases.
However, when participants were asked how confident they would feel explaining how an AI-assisted GRC decision had been reached, not a single respondent selected very confident.
Approximately 57% described themselves as somewhat confident but believed additional controls were needed, while the remaining respondents were unsure because their organisations had not sufficiently tested these scenarios.
Although this was a small pulse survey rather than a representative industry study, the findings reflect a broader challenge emerging from our discussions with GRC leaders.
Organisations recognise the operational potential of AI, but confidence in explainability, accountability and governance has not necessarily developed at the same pace.
This has important implications for the workforce. The professionals who can understand both the business risks and the governance requirements of AI-enabled processes will play an increasingly important role in how organisations adopt the technology.
The evolution of AI will place greater emphasis on a combination of domain expertise, critical thinking and practical AI literacy.
Professionals do not need to become AI engineers, but they will increasingly benefit from understanding what AI systems can do, where they are unreliable and how to use them responsibly.
This goes beyond learning how to write effective prompts. It includes understanding data quality, recognising potential hallucinations, evaluating recommendations and knowing when information should not be shared with a particular AI system.
There is a useful parallel with the adoption of workplace technologies such as Word and Excel. Most professionals never needed to understand how these applications were engineered, but the ability to use them effectively eventually became an expected workplace capability.
AI may follow a similar trajectory, although its impact on the nature of work is likely to be considerably more significant.
For GRC professionals, the opportunity lies in combining existing expertise with an understanding of how AI agents can be introduced into governed processes.
A risk professional who understands how agents can support continuous monitoring and control assessment can help shape more effective risk management practices. A compliance professional who understands both regulatory obligations and AI governance can contribute to the design of processes that are more efficient without compromising accountability.
These are not simply new technical skills. They represent an evolution in the value that GRC professionals can bring to their organisations.
Risk and compliance teams have traditionally spent considerable time collecting information, reconciling data across systems, preparing reports and coordinating routine activities.
These tasks are necessary, but they can consume resources that might otherwise be directed towards analysis, strategic advice and decision-making.
AI presents an opportunity to change that balance.
An agent may prepare an initial regulatory impact assessment, but a compliance professional determines its significance and challenges its assumptions. An agent may identify patterns across risks, incidents and controls, but an experienced risk leader understands how those patterns relate to the organisation's strategy, operating environment and risk appetite.
The distinction is not that AI performs simple work while people perform complex work. AI is increasingly capable of sophisticated analysis. The more important distinction is between executing defined activities and exercising accountable judgement within a broader organisational context.
This is where the future value of GRC professionals is likely to become increasingly visible.
At ReadiNow, this evolution is influencing how we approach AI within enterprise GRC.
We see the opportunity extending well beyond placing a conversational assistant alongside an existing platform. Native AI agents can participate directly in governed workflows, helping organisations analyse information, assess controls, identify emerging risks, recommend actions and execute clearly defined activities.
Critically, these capabilities need to operate within the organisation's existing governance environment.
AI agents should work with established permissions, business rules, data relationships and approval requirements, with appropriate audit trails and escalation mechanisms. Governance should be part of how the work is executed, rather than something applied after an agent has completed its task.
The objective is not automation for its own sake. It is to reduce unnecessary manual effort, improve the consistency and timeliness of GRC processes and allow professionals to devote more attention to the decisions that require their expertise.
As AI capabilities advance, organisations that successfully combine governed automation with human judgement will be better positioned to realise the technology's value.
There is still uncertainty about precisely how AI will reshape individual professions. Some activities will become automated, some responsibilities will change materially and new areas of expertise will emerge.
What is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore is that AI will influence how work is organised, assessed and delivered.
For organisations, this means thinking beyond individual use cases and considering how AI fits into operating models, workforce capabilities and governance frameworks. For professionals, it means developing the knowledge and confidence to work effectively with technology that is becoming an active participant in business processes.
The future of GRC is unlikely to be defined by a choice between people and AI. It will be shaped by how effectively organisations bring the two together.
The question is no longer simply what AI can do. It is what people should be doing differently because of it.
The changing role of people in AI-enabled GRC is one of the topics we continue to explore through the ReadiNow Executive Roundtable series.
These discussions bring together senior risk, compliance, governance and resilience leaders to share practical experiences, examine emerging AI use cases and consider how organisations can balance innovation with accountability.
If you would like to contribute to a future discussion, we invite you to register your interest.
Register your interest in a future Executive Roundtable
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