Technology risk trends - Your key priorities for 2026

2nd February 2026

Your key priorities for 2026 report from Grant Thornton UK highlighting the main technology and risk priorities organisations should focus on this year.

The following is short summary of the report with a link to the full report at the bottom of this page.

If your business uses a computer the business it may well be worth reading for owners and board members and indeed elected councillors to ask the right questions.

Measures to Take
Here are the top five practical actions organisations should prioritise in 2026, based on Grant Thornton's Technology Risk Trends report:

Strengthen Cybersecurity & Resilience

Focus on ransomware prevention, identity management, and access controls.

Implement tested incident response plans and real-time monitoring to reduce downtime.

Ensure board oversight and that cyber risk is treated as a strategic issue, not just an IT problem.

Improve Cloud Governance

Adopt a formal cloud governance framework covering security, compliance, and cost control (FinOps).

Clarify the shared responsibility model with providers to avoid misconfigurations.

Continuously monitor multi-cloud environments to prevent hidden vulnerabilities.

Embed AI Governance

Establish controls for generative and autonomous AI to manage bias, transparency, and ethical risks.

Align AI projects with internal policies and external regulations (EU AI Act, UK AI guidance).

Include AI oversight in internal audit and risk assurance frameworks.

Manage Third‑Party & Supply Chain Risks

Move from periodic reviews to continuous monitoring of vendors and supply chains.

Identify critical dependencies that could disrupt operations.

Collaborate across functions (procurement, ESG, compliance) for holistic risk management.

Strengthen Data Governance & Zero Trust Security

Ensure data quality, lifecycle management, and ethical use, especially with AI and automated decision systems.

Adopt zero trust principles: verify continuously, segment networks, and secure access even within the organisation.

Update enterprise risk frameworks to cover emerging threats like deepfakes and disinformation.

Grant Thornton emphasises that technology risk is now a board-level concern. Organisations should move from reactive, compliance-focused approaches to proactive, strategic governance, embedding resilience, security, ethical use, and regulatory alignment into all tech decisions.

The report outlines the major technology risks shaping 2026 and what boards, risk functions and internal audit teams should prioritise to protect their organisations. It emphasises that technology risk is now a strategic issue requiring board‑level oversight, not just an IT concern.

Evolving Cybersecurity Threats

Cyber risk remains the top concern for organisations, with ransomware and sophisticated attacks rising.

Complex ecosystems involving cloud, SaaS and third‑party access increase vulnerabilities.

Internal audit should focus on identity and access management, third‑party risk assurance, and aligning with new audit standards.

Technology Resilience & Incident Response

Organisations must build comprehensive resilience and incident response capabilities, going beyond IT to include people, processes and data.

Recent high‑impact disruptions (including non‑cyber outages) have shown the need for immutable backups, tested playbooks, and real‑time monitoring.

Risk functions should adopt proactive assurance models, anticipating disruptions rather than reacting after the fact.

Cloud Governance & Security

Increased adoption of multi‑cloud environments has created governance and security blind spots.

Understanding the shared responsibility model with cloud service providers is critical to avoid misconfiguration risks and spiralling costs.

Organisations should establish firm cloud governance frameworks and use FinOps practices to optimise cost and performance.

Generative & Autonomous AI

AI adoption is accelerating, but most organisations struggle to integrate it effectively.

Risks include ethical issues, bias, lack of transparency, and misaligned workflows.

Companies must embed robust AI governance, data quality controls, and performance monitoring; internal audit should assess readiness and ethical alignment.

Digital Regulation & Compliance

New and evolving laws in the UK and EU — such as the EU AI Act and the UK Data (Use and Access) Act — are raising the compliance bar for technology use.

Organisations must proactively align with these frameworks to mitigate fines and reputational risk, especially with personal data and automated decision systems.

Internal audit and risk teams should strengthen compliance monitoring and integrate regulatory requirements into existing controls.

Critical Third‑Party & Supply Chain Risk

Dependence on key third parties (e.g., cloud providers or critical vendors) creates concentration risk that can have widespread operational impact if disrupted.

The focus must shift from periodic assessments to continuous, real‑time monitoring using advanced tools — including AI — to uncover hidden dependencies.

Risk teams should collaborate across functions (procurement, ESG, compliance) for holistic supply‑chain risk management.

Data Governance

Strong data governance is now a strategic enabler of trust, compliance and value creation — particularly with AI systems.

Regulatory reforms require clear transparency, ethical use, and accountability for personal and automated decision data.

Internal audit should evaluate data quality, lifecycle management, and alignment with global standards.

Zero Trust Security

The report highlights zero trust — where nothing is trusted automatically — as an essential modern security approach.

With cloud, remote work and AI threats increasing, perimeter‑only protections are no longer sufficient.

Organisations are embedding continuous verification, micro‑segmentation and adaptive threat detection into their security strategies.

Deepfakes & Disinformation Threats

The rise of deepfakes and AI‑generated disinformation presents new fraud, reputational and social engineering risks.

Boards and risk teams must embed controls against synthetic media attacks and align with disclosure requirements like those in the EU AI Act.

Internal audit should verify layered controls and update enterprise risk frameworks to account for these emerging threats.

Overall Takeaway

Technology risk in 2026 spans cyber threats, cloud, AI, regulation, and deepening third‑party dependencies.

Boards and risk teams must shift from reactive, compliance‑focused approaches to proactive, strategic tech risk governance that anticipates disruptions, aligns with evolving regulation, and embeds resilience and ethical use into the enterprise.

Read the Grant Thornton report HERE