GRC Has Always Been About Doing the Right Thing
The way we approach governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) has evolved over the years, but its core mission has stayed the same: ensuring organizations act with integrity, transparency, and accountability.
The tools we use are changing, and artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming a bigger part of the conversation. Initially, AI was seen as just a way to automate tasks, but it’s increasingly reshaping how GRC practitioners make business-critical decisions.
That raises an important question: How do we make sure AI reflects and reinforces the ethical core of GRC rather than just stepping on the gas?
A Profession Built on Ethics, Not Just Rules
The term GRC might feel like it’s been around forever, but it was first formalized in 2002 by the Open Compliance and Ethics Group (OCEG). From the beginning, GRC was about going above and beyond compliance rules to build a framework for responsible business decision-making.
At Anecdotes, my colleagues and I still feel strongly that GRC means much more than compliance checklists or passing audits. Over the years, too many tools and practices have reduced GRC to a box-ticking exercise. But GRC was never meant to be about meeting the bare minimum. It’s about maintaining transparency, trust, and accountability as guiding principles.
That same mindset needs to apply to AI. GRC professionals can’t just use off-the-shelf AI to check compliance boxes. We have to make sure the AI we use—and how we use it—aligns with the principles that define GRC itself.
What is Responsible AI?
It’s easy to assume that AI is neutral. Just another tool. But the reality is that AI reflects the values and priorities of the people who build it. Without careful design, AI can reinforce biases, compromise privacy, and generate outputs that lack the necessary context for high-stakes decisions.
In fast-moving fields like GRC, where accuracy and accountability are non-negotiable, Responsible AI is a must.
TechTarget defines Responsible AI this way:
“Responsible AI is an approach to developing and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) from both an ethical and legal point of view. The goal of responsible AI is to use AI in a safe, trustworthy, and ethical fashion.”
At its core, Responsible AI means designing AI systems to be transparent, fair, and accountable.
- AI should be explainable, not a black box.
- AI should be trained on relevant, high-quality data to produce meaningful insights.
- AI should align with ethical and legal standards, not just optimize for efficiency.
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Beyond the “Automate Everything” Mindset
There’s no shortage of AI tools claiming to optimize every aspect of modern life, from brewing your morning coffee to booking your dinner reservations. In GRC, AI is often presented as a solution to maximize speed and efficiency.
But GRC isn’t just a set of processes to automate away. It’s a discipline rooted in trust, transparency, and accountability. No matter how advanced AI gets, this work still requires extensive context, human judgment, and ethical reasoning.
That’s why we have to design AI for GRC to do more than automate. It needs to learn and collaborate. To make a real difference in GRC, AI will have to adapt to an organization’s unique risk landscape, surface meaningful insights, and support human professionals in making sound decisions.
Upholding GRC Values in an AI-Driven World
AI is everywhere, including in GRC, and the opportunities for efficiency and innovation are exciting. But speed and automation can’t come at the expense of trust, transparency, and accountability. GRC professionals need AI that reinforces rather than weakens the ethical foundation of their work.
Anecdotes takes a Responsible AI approach so we can deliver cutting-edge capabilities while staying grounded in ethics. We hope the rest of the industry will follow our lead and stay true to the higher purpose of GRC instead of merely tacking on AI to speed up audits and checklists.
By holding AI to the same ethical standards that define the rest of our work, GRC professionals can make sure the discipline remains what it was always meant to be: a commitment to doing the right thing.
AI can be a help for GRC teams — and it also adds more regulations and complexity. Anecdotes is a founding member of the Compliance Automation Revolution from Cloud Security Alliance, an organization working to create and maintain a trusted cloud ecosystem through awareness, practical implementation advice, and certification.
Check out the Compliance Automation Revolution to see where GRC is headed.
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