Autonomous software at large firms: 87% say controls fall short

A new survey on autonomous software in large companies just came out, and it points to a pretty obvious governance gap. Among 3,600 decision-makers at firms with more than $500 million in revenue, over half say their systems already operate within set rules without regular human review, or can carry entire processes through without human approval.

That gap runs through the whole report. Eighty-seven percent say they need better approval, monitoring, and control. The same percentage says faster authorization is necessary to stay competitive. And among the decision-makers who say speed matters, 91% also say the current process needs to improve.

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Meanwhile, autonomy is already showing up across a wide stretch of enterprise tools: 59% of conversational systems, 56% of predictive analytics, machine learning, robotic process automation, and natural language processing tools, and 54% of standalone generative products.

The rollout numbers get less comfortable. Forty-six percent of fast-moving organizations reported security, privacy, regulatory, or compliance issues. Another 25% said they lost visibility or control. Forty-five percent worry employees are using output without checking it. Thirty-two percent reported non-compliant use. Thirty-one percent found unapproved tools. Thirty-seven percent said decision ownership is blurred. On the security side, 30% want major strengthening and 40% want moderate strengthening. And 94% say governance and risk still need work.

Separate research lands in a similar place: 54% of security and IT professionals say they’ve already dealt with related incidents. Europe’s new rules, along with frameworks like NIST and ISO/IEC 42001, are also pushing adoption.

If you work with enterprise automation, this report is worth reading.

You can find the full survey findings online.

Author: Manuel Bosque

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