Survey after survey puts the same sources of risk in their top echelon.
But the world is changing, and a new survey from Gartner is more in line with what I would expect to be on the minds of effective CROs.
The latest Gartner Quarterly Emerging Risk Report surveyed 337 “enterprise risk management (ERM) leaders, risk management professionals, auditors and senior executives”. It identified the top five emerging risks in the first quarter of this year. As their research director said:
The emerging risks in the first quarter of 2026 show new concern related to AI in the workforce and how preparedness is an increasing issue.
The top risk according to the survey is “Information integrity risk“, described as:
The risk that the proliferation of unreliable and low-quality public datasets, AI-generated content, and politicization of data reduces access to accurate information, leading to costly decisions and misinformed decisions.
In other words, the data used by AI agents is incomplete, inaccurate, out of date, or even bogus. As a result, poor decisions are made.
The second source of risk is “US-policy-induced investment uncertainty“. I am assuming that this is an objective and not political result. It is described as:
The risk that unpredictable U.S. policy shifts,…
