TLDR: OneTrust has launched new AI agents and capabilities to enhance AI governance, responding to a significant increase in AI-related risk management workloads. A new report highlights that organizations are spending 37% more time on AI risk, revealing critical gaps in traditional governance frameworks that struggle with the speed and complexity of AI innovation.
OneTrust, a leading AI-ready governance platform, announced a suite of new capabilities and the findings from its inaugural 2025 AI-Ready Governance Report on September 9, 2025. These developments address the escalating challenges governance teams face in managing the rapid pace and complexity of artificial intelligence. The company’s research indicates a substantial 37% increase in the time governance teams spent managing AI risk this year, underscoring an urgent need for modernized governance strategies.
According to DV Lamba, Chief Technology Officer at OneTrust, “AI is creating powerful new engines for efficiency, decision-making, and innovation. Governance professionals can lead this transformation by defining AI’s role in risk management, compliance, and governance.” Lamba emphasized that OneTrust’s platform, with its automated workflows and AI agents, aims to enable continuous governance, providing organizations with the tools to thrive in the AI era.
The 2025 AI-Ready Governance Report, which surveyed 1,250 governance executives across North America and Europe, revealed that 73% of respondents identified critical gaps in visibility, collaboration, and policy enforcement due to rapid AI growth. This has prompted 82% of leaders to acknowledge that AI risks necessitate a modernization of their governance approaches.
Blake Brannon, Chief Innovation Officer at OneTrust, highlighted the disparity between AI’s velocity and traditional governance processes. “The speed of AI innovation has exposed a fundamental mismatch. While AI projects move at unprecedented speed, traditional governance processes are operating at yesterday’s pace. Legacy GRC tools with manual reviews and lengthy approval cycles are creating innovation bottlenecks,” Brannon stated. He stressed the need for governance technology that offers automated visibility, real-time monitoring, and intelligent enforcement of guardrails.
Among the new innovations, OneTrust introduced a Third-Party Risk Agent designed to automate the intake and assessment of third-party risks, summarize findings, flag issues, and guide monitoring. Additionally, a new AI governance integration with Databricks provides centralized, real-time visibility into AI development, ensuring that models registered in Databricks Unity Catalog are synchronized with OneTrust to maintain a single source of truth.
Further insights from Shane Wiggins, Director of Product at OneTrust, from a September 8, 2025, podcast, reinforced the need for a paradigm shift. Wiggins argued that “traditional data governance models, often designed for structured databases, are not built to manage today’s dynamic, unstructured AI workflows.” This inadequacy leads to compliance gaps, inconsistent oversight, and internal conflicts. He pointed out that valuable AI applications are increasingly emerging from unstructured data like images, documents, and audio, which legacy tools are ill-equipped to handle.
The regulatory landscape adds another layer of pressure, with over 144 countries having national privacy laws and at least 45 AI-specific regulations expected globally by 2026. The European Union’s AI Act, for instance, carries potential fines of up to €35 million or 7% of global turnover. Wiggins advocated for embedding “self-service governance” directly into development processes to ensure flexibility and adaptability to evolving regulations without stifling innovation.
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A Trustmarque survey cited by Wiggins revealed that while 93% of organizations use AI, only a mere 7% have embedded governance, and fewer than 30% conduct regular bias testing or maintain audit trails, indicating a significant governance deficit in the face of widespread AI adoption.
