AI is reshaping how organizations create, access, and share data, and that’s driving both opportunity and risk.

According to the research summarized in the report:

• 95% of organizations are either implementing or developing an AI strategy.
• Enterprise data volume already averages 2 petabytes and is growing at over 40% year over year, in part due to AI usage.
• 80% of risk leaders cite leakage of sensitive data as a top AI concern.
• 62% of leaders say they don’t have a strong data governance structure, and only 25% have a global data quality program.

As AI tools generate and consume more data, organizations are seeing more incidents tied directly to AI, often because permissions, controls, and basic data hygiene haven’t kept pace. Many leaders are hesitant to fully embrace AI until they strengthen their data security posture and governance model.

At the same time, regulations are tightening. Organizations are dealing with 200+ daily regulatory updates across more than 900 regulatory agencies, and many security leaders developing AI say they are not prepared to comply with emerging AI regulations.

In response, 53% of security, risk, and data leaders are increasing budgets to address AI-related regulatory requirements. The overall takeaway: AI is forcing organizations to rethink how they secure, govern, and measure the quality of their data before they can confidently scale AI initiatives.

Many organizations have responded to new risks by adding more tools. On paper, that looks like stronger protection. In practice, it often creates blind spots and inefficiencies—especially with AI in the mix.

The research highlights that organizations typically rely on 11 or more data security tools, and even more when you include governance and compliance platforms. This leads to:

• Limited visibility into where data lives, how it’s used, and who is accessing it across the full data estate.
• Higher incident volume—data shows that the more tools an organization uses, the more incidents they tend to experience.
• Duplicated data and inconsistent data classification across systems.
• Redundant alerts and siloed investigations that slow down response.
• Higher costs and ineffective governance, which can lead to regulatory non-compliance.

Leaders also point to organizational silos as a major barrier. Security, compliance, governance, and privacy teams often use different platforms that don’t interoperate well. About a third of leaders say managing data across multiple platforms is a top barrier to collaboration.

The net effect is that incident management, data sharing, and audit trails become fragmented. Teams struggle to see the full picture of data flows and AI usage, which increases risk at the very moment AI is expanding the data footprint.

The research points to a clear shift: leaders want to move away from fragmented tools toward a unified platform that brings data security, governance, compliance, and privacy together.

Key signals from the data:

• The majority of organizations believe integrated solutions are more effective than multiple best-of-breed tools.
• Over 90% of data security, governance, compliance, and privacy leaders say their organization will adopt a unified solution.
• 87% of leaders already have responsibilities that span multiple areas (security, governance, compliance, privacy), which aligns naturally with a unified approach.
• About half of security leaders list tool consolidation, new tools to meet requirements, and expanded responsibility areas as top priorities.

A unified platform is designed to:

• Provide centralized visibility across the full data estate, including user risk profiles and data access patterns.
• Connect data security, governance, privacy, and risk management so policies and controls are consistent.
• Balance centralized oversight with decentralized ownership—business units manage their own data while central teams enforce policies and monitor risk.
• Improve data quality so AI systems rely on clean, trusted data rather than fragmented or inconsistent sources.
• Streamline compliance with integrated audit trails, reporting, and region-specific regulatory insights.

Leaders also expect a unified platform to save time, reduce risk exposure, and improve visibility for executives, which can lower overall costs by reducing incidents and manual effort.

Importantly, the data does not suggest that unification will remove jobs. In 2025 there are an estimated 3.5 million cybersecurity roles open globally, a 350% increase over the past eight years. Instead, unified platforms—often with AI copilots built in—are expected to help teams execute their expanded responsibilities more effectively and close skills gaps without constant retraining on new, disconnected tools.