The risks that organisations once monitored from a distance are now actively reshaping business models, capital decisions, and strategic priorities. What changed is not the existence of these risks but their velocity, interconnectedness, and the speed at which they compound each other. According to the IIA’s Risk in Focus 2026 survey of over 4,000 internal audit practitioners across 131 countries, cybersecurity, digital disruption and AI, business resilience, geopolitical uncertainty, and human capital are the five risk categories experiencing the most significant simultaneous pressure on organisations globally. [1] Understanding each one individually is necessary. Understanding how they interact is essential.
Download the Pierag Emerging Risks and Trends 2026 Point of View (PDF)
The Five Risks Every Leader Must Focus On
Cybersecurity. Cyber incidents are no longer just an IT problem. They disrupt operations, delay customer interactions, destroy data integrity, and attract regulatory scrutiny with increasing financial consequences. Third-party involvement in data breaches doubled from 15% to 30% in a single year, and ransomware payments reached record highs in 2025 across financial services, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors. [2] 73% of internal audit practitioners globally rate cybersecurity as a top-five concern, the highest of any risk category. [1]
Digital Disruption and AI. AI adoption is accelerating faster than governance frameworks can keep up. The question is no longer whether to adopt AI. It is who is accountable when AI systems make consequential errors in credit decisions, procurement approvals, fraud detection, or financial reporting workflows. 31% of executives surveyed in the 2026 NC State and Protiviti risk survey ranked AI integration as a top-three risk concern, citing governance gaps, lack of explainability, and the pace of deployment outrunning internal audit capability. [3]
Business Resilience. Resilience in 2026 is not about recovering after a disruption. It is about sustaining performance while disruption is still underway. Single-source supply chains, concentrated cloud dependencies, and lean operating models that served organisations well in stable conditions are proving brittle under simultaneous pressures from cyber incidents, geopolitical shocks, and talent shortfalls. Resilience planning must be embedded in strategic and operational decision-making, not treated as a separate crisis management function.
Geopolitical Uncertainty. Trade disputes, tariffs, sanctions, and regulatory changes are happening with minimal warning and compressing the decision window available to boards and executive teams. Geopolitical uncertainty increased by 10 percentage points in the Risk in Focus 2026 survey compared with the prior year, the largest single-year increase of any category tracked. [1] Organisations must embed geopolitical scenario analysis into strategic planning rather than treating it as external noise outside the governance perimeter.
Human Capital. 40% of organisations worldwide identify talent as a key risk. [4] Having a strategy means little without the people and skills required to execute it. The talent gap is most acute in data analytics, AI literacy, cybersecurity expertise, and regulatory compliance capability – precisely the skills most needed to manage the other four risks on this list.
Why Interconnectedness Is the Defining Challenge
What makes these five risks truly complex is how deeply they are interconnected. A cyber incident amplifies operational fragility. Geopolitical shifts strain already-stretched supply chains and create compliance obligations across multiple jurisdictions simultaneously. Talent gaps slow an organisation’s ability to respond to any of the above. AI governance failures create cyber and regulatory exposure. Business resilience collapses when human capital is insufficient to maintain operations during disruption.
In this environment, risk management and internal audit are both shifting from periodic process review to continuous risk intelligence. The audit committee and Chief Risk Officer cannot govern a risk environment this dynamic using annual plans and quarterly reports. Real-time risk signal monitoring, dynamic audit planning, and cross-functional risk intelligence are the operational requirements of effective governance in 2026. Pierag’s Business Risk Advisory practice works with boards, audit committees, and risk leaders to design the monitoring frameworks, audit programmes, and governance infrastructure this environment demands.
The Evolving Role of Internal Audit
Internal audit is shifting from process reviewer to risk interpreter. The function that arrives at board meetings with findings about what went wrong three months ago is no longer providing the assurance that modern governance requires. The function that arrives with forward-looking risk intelligence, continuous monitoring outputs, and coverage of AI systems, third-party dependencies, and geopolitical exposures is the one that earns and retains strategic relevance. Pierag’s Technology Risk Advisory teams support organisations in building the cybersecurity, AI governance, and third-party risk audit capabilities that the 2026 risk landscape demands.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the top five emerging risks for organisations in 2026?
Cybersecurity, digital disruption and AI, business resilience, geopolitical uncertainty, and human capital. These five risks are deeply interconnected and are simultaneously increasing in severity across global markets, based on the IIA’s Risk in Focus 2026 survey of over 4,000 practitioners. [1]
Why is geopolitical uncertainty a growing risk in 2026?
Geopolitical uncertainty increased by 10 percentage points in the Risk in Focus 2026 survey, driven by trade disputes, tariffs, sanctions, and regulatory divergence across jurisdictions. It enters organisations through supply chain concentration, foreign exchange volatility, and cross-border compliance obligations. [1]
How should internal audit respond to AI risk?
By building audit frameworks that address AI system authorisation, decision traceability, behavioural bounds, and human oversight controls. AI governance is now a standard component of a credible internal audit programme rather than a specialist add-on.
What does business resilience mean in practice for 2026?
Resilience means sustaining operational performance while disruption is still active, not recovering after it ends. This requires diversified supply chains, cloud dependency management, operational redundancy, and workforce contingency planning embedded in strategic decision-making.
References
[1] European Confederation of Institutes of Internal Auditing (ECIIA). (2025, September). Risk in Focus 2026: Hot Topics for Internal Auditors. Retrieved from https://www.eciia.eu/2025/09/risk-in-focus-2026-hot-topics-for-internal-auditors/
[2] Verizon Business. (2025, April 23). 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report: Third-party involvement doubles to 30% [Press release]. Retrieved from https://www.verizon.com/about/news/2025-data-breach-investigations-report
[3] NC State University ERM Initiative. (2025, December 11). Insights from the 14th Annual Executive Risk Survey: Top risks 2026 to 2028. Retrieved from https://erm.ncsu.edu/resource-center/insights-from-the-14th-annual-executive-risk-survey/
