2026 State of CCM Report: Resource Constraints Drive 85% of Organizations to Rethink Traditional GRC Approaches

RegScale’s 2nd Annual State of Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM) Report Highlights Massive Workforce Strain, Majority Turning to Automated GRC

TYSONS CORNER, Va.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--RegScale today announced its second annual State of Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM) Report, building on last year’s landmark study with expanded insights into how organizations are adapting to rising regulatory pressure and increasing security demands.

This year’s data shows that 83% of organizations report moderate or major delays caused by manual compliance work, with 53% dedicating the equivalent of one full-time employee exclusively to evidence collection — just one of dozens of manual GRC workflows. As security and risk frameworks multiply and regulatory expectations accelerate, teams are facing the highest operational stress levels recorded to date.

“Compliance and security teams are doing everything they can, but the human burden has become unsustainable,” said Dale Hoak, CISO, RegScale. “This year’s findings highlight that organizations are delaying critical activities, struggling to monitor controls in real time, and relying on legacy manual processes that directly undermine security readiness. Continuous Controls Monitoring is the bridge that helps teams reduce labor, improve visibility, and ultimately modernize and strengthen resilience in an increasingly complex environment.”

Key Findings from the 2026 Report

The Workforce Breaking Point:

• 85% of organizations report delaying or eliminating legacy GRC activities due to resource constraints.
• 44% have postponed control testing and monitoring, while 33% have postponed policy updates and governance reviews with 25% citing a lack of skilled employees as a major barrier.

AI Adoption Rising, Yet Full Automation Remains Rare:

• 95% of organizations have implemented some level of automation in GRC.
• Only 4% have achieved full end-to-end automation.
• Only 28% monitor their security controls continuously in real- time, while 72% still rely on periodic assessments.
• 64% report significant or transformational improvement from AI adoption.

The 2026 report underscores a pivotal trend: real-time compliance and security are becoming indistinguishable requirements. Organizations that rely on manual evidence collection, fragmented data, and periodic control checks face increased exposure and higher operational costs, particularly as AI-driven threats accelerate.

“Having led security operations at global companies, I’ve seen firsthand how manual compliance processes create cascading failures,” said Roland Cloutier, former Global CISO/CSO and RegScale Strategic Advisor. “Every day an organization delays automation, they’re making an implicit choice: pay now in tech investments, or pay later in time, audit findings, and organizational risk.”

Beyond workforce strain and automation maturity, the report examines board-level reporting and metrics, industry-specific compliance challenges, regulatory complexity, and how organizations are evolving governance models to support continuous assurance. Together, these insights provide a broader view of how compliance programs are being reshaped to meet rising expectations from regulators, executives, and businesses.

To explore the full findings of the 2026 State of Continuous Controls Monitoring Report, please download the full report or attend the exclusive webinar on January 27, 2026, where industry experts will share actionable guidance on strengthening compliance operations, improving automation maturity, and building a more resilient security posture.

Methodology:

The 2026 State of Continuous Controls Monitoring Report is based on a survey conducted in September and October 2025 among 253 InfoSec leaders, including CISOs, CIOs, Chief Risk Officers, and VPs and Directors of Security. Respondents were surveyed from organizations with more than 1,000 employees and across a range of industries, including financial services, healthcare, tech, retail, government, business services, manufacturing, and more.

About RegScale

RegScale is a Continuous Controls Monitoring (CCM) platform designed to be the operational risk tool for the CISO. Built on a compliance as code foundation, RegScale enables extreme automation with our API-first strategy, self-updating paperwork, and powerful AI agents that all but eliminate manual labor and make your program more proactive. Save money, accelerate time to market, and reduce risk in your operational environment. Heavily regulated organizations, including Fortune 500 enterprises and the federal government, use RegScale and report achieving compliance certifications 90% faster and trimming audit preparation efforts by 60%, strengthening security and reducing costs. Learn more at www.regscale.com.