CCI staff share recent surveys, reports and analysis on risk, compliance, governance, infosec and leadership issues. Share details of your survey with us: editor@corporatecomplianceinsights.com.
Cybersecurity holds top spot on audit risk list as technical skills gap widens
About two-thirds (64%) of internal audit leaders report increased budgets heading into 2026, and 43% expect to add headcount, but investment is not keeping pace with the function’s expanding mandate, according to a new survey from accounting and advisory firm Sikich.
Cybersecurity remains the top emerging risk cited by internal audit leaders at 43%, up from 41% in 2025, while AI and automation held steady at 35% and regulatory compliance rose to 25% from 23%, the survey found. Chief audit executives (CAEs) and audit committees broadly align on top risks but diverge on strategic risk, which 29% of audit committees flag as a priority compared with 13% of CAEs. More than four in five (82%) audit plans now include business resilience and third-party risk, and 77% include AI assessments.
The resource picture is more complicated than the budget figures suggest. Technical skill shortages — particularly in cyber and AI — were cited as the leading hiring and retention challenge by 64% of respondents, up from 59% in 2025, and 43% identified time, budget and resources as the biggest implementation barrier. More than four in five (82%) audit functions now use external partners to supplement in-house capacity, most often to access specialized skills rather than to fill headcount gaps.
Other findings from the report include:
- Nine in 10 (90%) internal audit functions use AI in their own work, including for brainstorming and writing (63%), data analytics (62%) and audit planning (59%).
- Assurance over organizational AI is concentrated on governance (81%) and data privacy (75%); only 53% assess operational effectiveness, 40% address ethical use and bias, and 36% include model validation.
- Compensation pressure in internal audit roles climbed to 43% from 38%, while competition for talent jumped from 28% to 38%.
Directors call strategy execution their most pressing oversight gap
About three in five (60%) public company directors and 61% of private company directors identified strategy execution as the oversight area most in need of improvement over the next 12 months, according to the National Association of Corporate Directors’ (NACD) 2026 blue ribbon commission report.
The report, which draws on NACD’s survey of more than 260 directors alongside interviews with blue ribbon commissioners, found that 55% of public directors said strategic assumptions and scenario testing need greater board attention, followed by external risks and developments (46%) and organizational capabilities and talent (41%). The commission argues that traditional “review and concur” approaches to oversight no longer fit a business environment reshaped by AI, geopolitical volatility and compressed strategy cycles.
Directors also pointed to structural barriers that limit effective execution oversight, led by over-reliance on financial metrics, insufficient assumption testing and insufficient forward-looking metrics. Just 32% of public directors and 28% of private directors said their board “definitely” has the collective skill set and experience to support their organization’s growth strategy, suggesting many boards may need to reassess composition.
Other findings from the report include:
- Seven in 10 (70%) public directors said their boards have increased the frequency of strategy discussions, and 51% report more dialogue between meetings on strategy.
- Public boards that reported being “often or very often” involved in operational or management-level decisions were 25 percentage points less likely to rate their strategy execution oversight as highly effective than boards that stayed at arm’s length.
- Among private directors, 61% said their committees are effectively structured to support strategy execution oversight, compared with 92% of public directors.
Dealmakers brace for tariff & regulatory headwinds despite strong 2026 pipeline
M&A professionals expect strong deal activity to continue into 2027, but tariffs and shifting trade policy have overtaken interest rates as the biggest perceived threat to transactions, according to a new report from law firm Dykema.
In a survey of senior executives, investment bankers, private equity sponsors and advisers, Dykema found that nearly half of respondents named tariff and trade policy uncertainty as the top external risk to deal activity over the next 12 months, surpassing interest rate concerns that had led the survey in each of the prior three years. Regulatory uncertainty around antitrust and foreign investment review ranked second.
Respondents nonetheless remained bullish on volume, with a majority expecting their own deal activity to increase in 2027. Private equity dry powder and strategic buyers’ balance sheets were cited as the primary tailwinds, while the private credit market continued to displace traditional bank financing on mid-market deals.
Other findings from the report include:
- About three in five (62%) respondents said AI-related due diligence has become a standard part of their transaction review, up sharply from the prior year.
- Cross-border deal activity is expected to slow, with respondents citing CFIUS and European foreign direct investment regimes as material frictions.
- Technology, healthcare and energy ranked as the top three sectors for anticipated activity.
Nearly 4 in 5 finance teams still correcting errors in month-end close
Nearly four in five (78%) finance teams discover errors that require manual correction during the month-end close, according to a survey by financial planning software provider Vena.
In a survey of finance and accounting professionals across North America, Vena found that close cycles continue to drag on despite widespread investment in automation tools. Respondents reported that reconciliation issues, data entry mistakes and manual journal entries remain the top sources of error, with roughly a third of teams saying they spend more than a week each month resolving them before books can be closed.
The findings point to a persistent gap between finance technology adoption and realized efficiency, with many organizations layering automation on top of fragmented source systems rather than addressing underlying data quality issues. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said they are evaluating or implementing AI tools in the close process, though confidence in those tools’ outputs remains uneven.
