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As the regulatory and risk landscapes evolve, GRC programs are becoming more complex. The growing number of regulatory frameworks and requirements puts notable strain on organizations, demanding a systemized approach to GRC management.
This pressure often leads to considerable inefficiencies—instead of focusing on security, teams spend excessive time on manual tasks like taking screenshots and collecting evidence.
Organizations can now access technologies that help overcome these obstacles, and this guide will cover the most noteworthy ones. Specifically, you’ll learn how continuous control monitoring (CCM), automation, and AI in GRC programs improve accuracy, reduce manual effort, enhances risk management processes, and enable scalable oversight.
We’ll also explore the best practices for adopting these solutions effectively and without excessive investment.
The challenges of managing GRC manually
On average, organizations spend 11 working weeks per year on compliance and seven working weeks on vendor security reviews. Much of this time is spent on manually tracking GRC requirements and performance metrics.
This time span increases yearly, indicating ever-growing stress and pressure on compliance and security teams. In addition to causing inefficiencies, this increases the odds of human error and burnout.
Manual point-in-time assessments exacerbate this issue but are still common in GRC programs. Compliance teams must sift through disparate systems to obtain information that might become obsolete shortly after the assessment, putting the organization at risk of undiscovered compliance violations.
These inefficiencies usually stem from several factors, such as:
- Fragmented and duplicative workflows
- Siloed task ownership
- Communication gaps
Organizations using legacy systems are particularly susceptible to inefficiencies, as they only offer point-in-time data without ongoing oversight capabilities.
{{cta_withimage26=”/cta-blocks”}} | How to achieve continuous compliance with Vanta & AWS
How CCM, automation, and AI can streamline GRC
A traditional GRC program consists of numerous tasks that must be completed on an ongoing basis (and often daily), such as:
- Entering data into disparate tools
- Demonstrating compliance through countless screenshots
- Manually checking employee access
- Tracking down system owners to fix compliance issues
These tasks require a significant time investment that could be better spent elsewhere. That’s where CCM, automation, and AI come into play.
By leveraging the right solutions, you can significantly reduce time requirements, achieve better scalability, and eliminate the need for scattered tools and processes.
“
CCM and automation are inevitably going to become the bedrock of compliance because of how they allow organizations to monitor and triage controls in real-time, as opposed to during audit engagements when the stakes are higher."
Here’s a quick overview of the primary functions and main benefits of CCM, automation, and AI in GRC:
To explain these benefits in more detail, we’ll focus on each aspect separately.
The role of CCM in GRC
Without CCM, your teams are stuck with manual control evaluations and compiling the related data to get an overview of control effectiveness. This is time-consuming and prevents you from fully grasping your security and compliance posture.
CCM solutions solve this issue by continuously monitoring security, compliance, and risk controls so that compliance teams can get up-to-date information. You’ll have a real-time (or near real-time) overview of your controls, which lets you stay on top of their implementation.
The main benefits of CCM are the ability to identify process risk in real-time and reduce surprises during audits instead of waiting for the auditor to find out, which makes for smoother audit engagements and a more comprehensive risk identification process.
This is particularly useful in complex compliance environments that require numerous controls. With CCM, you can track all the relevant metrics in one platform to replace disparate and inefficient systems.
Besides, CCM considerably improves your security posture and overall resilience to threats. It does so through automated alerts that notify users when a risk or vulnerability is identified, allowing them to react promptly and prevent incidents from escalating.
{cta_withimage24="/cta-blocks"}} | How to choose the right continuous compliance solution
The role of automation in GRC
A significant part of GRC implementation involves repetitive tasks like:
- Risk assessments
- Policy reviews
- Incident tracking
Automation removes these activities from compliance teams’ workflows by letting a dedicated platform handle them. Besides completing the tasks, the right compliance management software can also generate reports based on holistic data, letting teams become strategic reviewers instead of data compilers.
For example, you can run automated vendor risk assessments at predefined intervals through a platform that automatically scores risks based on your selected criteria. The complex work happens on autopilot in the background, and you get actionable insights in a fraction of the time.
Another option is to automate task assignments after specific events, such as control failure. Instead of manually reviewing everything, you can set up an automated workflow that triggers immediately after a control fails.
The more GRC tasks you automate, the more time your team has to focus on high-value initiatives rather than time-consuming manual processes. As a result, you can scale your operations more effortlessly and without increasing the headcount.
Other impactful ways in which automation directly impacts your ROI include:
- Streamlined compliance through automated control mapping to remove duplicative work
- Cohesive workflows through software integrations that remove inefficient communication data flows
- Process repeatability that lowers the necessity of comprehensive training
The role of AI in GRC
While automation removes the need for specific processes and tasks, AI enhances others. Specifically, its main purpose is to support human-led processes like decision-making, risk evaluation, and trend analysis.
If properly implemented, an AI solution can access data from several sources simultaneously, so your teams don’t have to track it down manually. More importantly, AI can analyze these data sets to identify patterns and proactively assess risk areas. A capable platform can then issue warnings that allow for quick corrective action.
As a technology that powers various modern solutions, AI can also enrich and simplify the implementation of automation and CCM. GRC platforms are increasingly leveraging it to replace basic if-this-then-that systems, enabling adaptability to complex risk and compliance scenarios.
That said, AI shouldn’t be fully entrusted with critical decisions, which is why AI compliance is becoming more important. Despite their rapid evolution, AI solutions aren’t infallible. They still require human oversight because of risks such as:
- Information bias: AI is trained on existing data, so it might inherit the bias of its datasets
- AI hallucinations: AI systems can sometimes provide inaccurate or made-up information, which calls for thorough fact-checking
- Lack of transparency: The underlying mechanisms of AI systems are often complex, so teams should be trained on how AI makes certain decisions
4 best practices for implementing CCM, automation, and AI
To get the most out of CCM, automation, and AI while minimizing their potential pitfalls, you can take these four steps:
- Identify baseline goals and controls: There’s no universal path to process automation—the extent and implementation specifics largely depend on your current workflows. Review your processes and controls to outline their automation potential.
- Establish integration and automation opportunities: CCM, automation, and AI platforms must be interconnected to enable streamlined operations. Look for solutions with robust integrations that let you create a unified system.
- Document accountability and escalation paths: Your team members are ultimately responsible for the results of automated or AI-driven processes, so it’s important to ensure clarity by assigning task owners and their responsibilities. You should also configure alerts corresponding to your controls and define a communication channel for escalating issues.
- Determine the ideal review cadence: You should implement CCM, automation, and AI gradually to avoid excessive process overhauls. Monitor the results of your implementation efforts closely and regularly to make adjustments as needed.
Scaling your GRC program through automation requires a careful selection of tools. You might need to adopt several platforms to get all the features you need, meaning the upfront investment can be considerable.
To minimize the costs, look for platforms that streamline as many GRC tasks as possible without needing third-party solutions or add-ons.
{{cta_withimage28="/cta-blocks"}} | Vanta’s AI Security Assessment
Optimize GRC management with Vanta
Vanta is a trust and compliance management solution that automates and centralizes your GRC activities into one robust platform. It comes with pre-built frameworks and workflows for over 35 major standards and regulations (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, NIS 2, etc.), drastically reducing the effort needed to achieve and maintain compliance.
The platform’s dedicated GRC product also automatically cross-references and maps controls between different frameworks, helping you avoid duplicative work and manage compliance with several authoritative sources from a centralized hub.
Additional features that support your GRC processes include:
- Over 375 integrations with popular software (CRMs, HRIS solutions, etc.)
- Over 1,200 automated tests for continuous monitoring
- Automated risk assessments and scoring
- Extensive GRC program management and reporting features
To quantify the benefits of these features, Vanta partnered with IDC to measure their impact. Some of the most notable results include:
- 2x faster ROI than other GRC tools
- 6-month faster payback period
- $107K annual benefit per 10 users
- 526% three-year return
- 3-month payback
This means that, besides streamlining your GRC efforts, Vanta lets you easily demonstrate the ROI of your automation efforts, allowing you to justify the investments more clearly and without guesswork.
Schedule a custom demo of Vanta’s GRC product to get a hands-on overview of its features and see how they help you scale GRC operations efficiently.
{{cta_simple29="/cta-blocks"}} | GRC product page
Continuous control monitoring
The role of CCM, automation, and AI in GRC
Looking to upgrade to continuous, automated GRC and get visibility across your entire program?
As the regulatory and risk landscapes evolve, GRC programs are becoming more complex. The growing number of regulatory frameworks and requirements puts notable strain on organizations, demanding a systemized approach to GRC management.
This pressure often leads to considerable inefficiencies—instead of focusing on security, teams spend excessive time on manual tasks like taking screenshots and collecting evidence.
Organizations can now access technologies that help overcome these obstacles, and this guide will cover the most noteworthy ones. Specifically, you’ll learn how continuous control monitoring (CCM), automation, and AI in GRC programs improve accuracy, reduce manual effort, enhances risk management processes, and enable scalable oversight.
We’ll also explore the best practices for adopting these solutions effectively and without excessive investment.
The challenges of managing GRC manually
On average, organizations spend 11 working weeks per year on compliance and seven working weeks on vendor security reviews. Much of this time is spent on manually tracking GRC requirements and performance metrics.
This time span increases yearly, indicating ever-growing stress and pressure on compliance and security teams. In addition to causing inefficiencies, this increases the odds of human error and burnout.
Manual point-in-time assessments exacerbate this issue but are still common in GRC programs. Compliance teams must sift through disparate systems to obtain information that might become obsolete shortly after the assessment, putting the organization at risk of undiscovered compliance violations.
These inefficiencies usually stem from several factors, such as:
- Fragmented and duplicative workflows
- Siloed task ownership
- Communication gaps
Organizations using legacy systems are particularly susceptible to inefficiencies, as they only offer point-in-time data without ongoing oversight capabilities.
{{cta_withimage26=”/cta-blocks”}} | How to achieve continuous compliance with Vanta & AWS
How CCM, automation, and AI can streamline GRC
A traditional GRC program consists of numerous tasks that must be completed on an ongoing basis (and often daily), such as:
- Entering data into disparate tools
- Demonstrating compliance through countless screenshots
- Manually checking employee access
- Tracking down system owners to fix compliance issues
These tasks require a significant time investment that could be better spent elsewhere. That’s where CCM, automation, and AI come into play.
By leveraging the right solutions, you can significantly reduce time requirements, achieve better scalability, and eliminate the need for scattered tools and processes.
“
CCM and automation are inevitably going to become the bedrock of compliance because of how they allow organizations to monitor and triage controls in real-time, as opposed to during audit engagements when the stakes are higher."
Here’s a quick overview of the primary functions and main benefits of CCM, automation, and AI in GRC:
To explain these benefits in more detail, we’ll focus on each aspect separately.
The role of CCM in GRC
Without CCM, your teams are stuck with manual control evaluations and compiling the related data to get an overview of control effectiveness. This is time-consuming and prevents you from fully grasping your security and compliance posture.
CCM solutions solve this issue by continuously monitoring security, compliance, and risk controls so that compliance teams can get up-to-date information. You’ll have a real-time (or near real-time) overview of your controls, which lets you stay on top of their implementation.
The main benefits of CCM are the ability to identify process risk in real-time and reduce surprises during audits instead of waiting for the auditor to find out, which makes for smoother audit engagements and a more comprehensive risk identification process.
This is particularly useful in complex compliance environments that require numerous controls. With CCM, you can track all the relevant metrics in one platform to replace disparate and inefficient systems.
Besides, CCM considerably improves your security posture and overall resilience to threats. It does so through automated alerts that notify users when a risk or vulnerability is identified, allowing them to react promptly and prevent incidents from escalating.
{cta_withimage24="/cta-blocks"}} | How to choose the right continuous compliance solution
The role of automation in GRC
A significant part of GRC implementation involves repetitive tasks like:
- Risk assessments
- Policy reviews
- Incident tracking
Automation removes these activities from compliance teams’ workflows by letting a dedicated platform handle them. Besides completing the tasks, the right compliance management software can also generate reports based on holistic data, letting teams become strategic reviewers instead of data compilers.
For example, you can run automated vendor risk assessments at predefined intervals through a platform that automatically scores risks based on your selected criteria. The complex work happens on autopilot in the background, and you get actionable insights in a fraction of the time.
Another option is to automate task assignments after specific events, such as control failure. Instead of manually reviewing everything, you can set up an automated workflow that triggers immediately after a control fails.
The more GRC tasks you automate, the more time your team has to focus on high-value initiatives rather than time-consuming manual processes. As a result, you can scale your operations more effortlessly and without increasing the headcount.
Other impactful ways in which automation directly impacts your ROI include:
- Streamlined compliance through automated control mapping to remove duplicative work
- Cohesive workflows through software integrations that remove inefficient communication data flows
- Process repeatability that lowers the necessity of comprehensive training
The role of AI in GRC
While automation removes the need for specific processes and tasks, AI enhances others. Specifically, its main purpose is to support human-led processes like decision-making, risk evaluation, and trend analysis.
If properly implemented, an AI solution can access data from several sources simultaneously, so your teams don’t have to track it down manually. More importantly, AI can analyze these data sets to identify patterns and proactively assess risk areas. A capable platform can then issue warnings that allow for quick corrective action.
As a technology that powers various modern solutions, AI can also enrich and simplify the implementation of automation and CCM. GRC platforms are increasingly leveraging it to replace basic if-this-then-that systems, enabling adaptability to complex risk and compliance scenarios.
That said, AI shouldn’t be fully entrusted with critical decisions, which is why AI compliance is becoming more important. Despite their rapid evolution, AI solutions aren’t infallible. They still require human oversight because of risks such as:
- Information bias: AI is trained on existing data, so it might inherit the bias of its datasets
- AI hallucinations: AI systems can sometimes provide inaccurate or made-up information, which calls for thorough fact-checking
- Lack of transparency: The underlying mechanisms of AI systems are often complex, so teams should be trained on how AI makes certain decisions
4 best practices for implementing CCM, automation, and AI
To get the most out of CCM, automation, and AI while minimizing their potential pitfalls, you can take these four steps:
- Identify baseline goals and controls: There’s no universal path to process automation—the extent and implementation specifics largely depend on your current workflows. Review your processes and controls to outline their automation potential.
- Establish integration and automation opportunities: CCM, automation, and AI platforms must be interconnected to enable streamlined operations. Look for solutions with robust integrations that let you create a unified system.
- Document accountability and escalation paths: Your team members are ultimately responsible for the results of automated or AI-driven processes, so it’s important to ensure clarity by assigning task owners and their responsibilities. You should also configure alerts corresponding to your controls and define a communication channel for escalating issues.
- Determine the ideal review cadence: You should implement CCM, automation, and AI gradually to avoid excessive process overhauls. Monitor the results of your implementation efforts closely and regularly to make adjustments as needed.
Scaling your GRC program through automation requires a careful selection of tools. You might need to adopt several platforms to get all the features you need, meaning the upfront investment can be considerable.
To minimize the costs, look for platforms that streamline as many GRC tasks as possible without needing third-party solutions or add-ons.
{{cta_withimage28="/cta-blocks"}} | Vanta’s AI Security Assessment
Optimize GRC management with Vanta
Vanta is a trust and compliance management solution that automates and centralizes your GRC activities into one robust platform. It comes with pre-built frameworks and workflows for over 35 major standards and regulations (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, NIS 2, etc.), drastically reducing the effort needed to achieve and maintain compliance.
The platform’s dedicated GRC product also automatically cross-references and maps controls between different frameworks, helping you avoid duplicative work and manage compliance with several authoritative sources from a centralized hub.
Additional features that support your GRC processes include:
- Over 375 integrations with popular software (CRMs, HRIS solutions, etc.)
- Over 1,200 automated tests for continuous monitoring
- Automated risk assessments and scoring
- Extensive GRC program management and reporting features
To quantify the benefits of these features, Vanta partnered with IDC to measure their impact. Some of the most notable results include:
- 2x faster ROI than other GRC tools
- 6-month faster payback period
- $107K annual benefit per 10 users
- 526% three-year return
- 3-month payback
This means that, besides streamlining your GRC efforts, Vanta lets you easily demonstrate the ROI of your automation efforts, allowing you to justify the investments more clearly and without guesswork.
Schedule a custom demo of Vanta’s GRC product to get a hands-on overview of its features and see how they help you scale GRC operations efficiently.
{{cta_simple29="/cta-blocks"}} | GRC product page
| Role: | GRC responsibilities: |
|---|---|
| Board of directors | Central to the overarching GRC strategy, this group sets the direction for the compliance strategy. They determine which standards and regulations are necessary for compliance and align the GRC strategy with business objectives. |
| Chief financial officer | Primary responsibility for the success of the GRC program and for reporting results to the board. |
| Operations managers from relevant departments | This group owns processes. They are responsible for the success and direction of risk management and compliance within their departments. |
| Representatives from relevant departments | These are the activity owners. These team members are responsible for carrying out specific compliance and risk management tasks within their departments and for integrating these tasks into their workflows. |
| Contract managers from relevant department | These team members are responsible for managing interactions with vendors and other third parties in their department to ensure all risk management and compliance measures are being taken. |
| Chief information security officer (CISO) | Defines the organization’s information security policy, designs risk and vulnerability assessments, and develops information security policies. |
| Data protection officer (DPO) or legal counsel | Develops goals for data privacy based on legal regulations and other compliance needs, designs and implements privacy policies and practices, and assesses these practices for effectiveness. |
| GRC lead | Responsible for overseeing the execution of the GRC program in collaboration with the executive team as well as maintaining the organization’s library of security controls. |
| Cybersecurity analyst(s) | Implements and monitors cybersecurity measures that are in line with the GRC program and business objectives. |
| Compliance analyst(s) | Monitors the organization’s compliance with all regulations and standards necessary, identifies any compliance gaps, and works to mitigate them. |
| Risk analyst(s) | Carries out the risk management program for the organization and serves as a resource for risk management across various departments, including identifying, mitigating, and monitoring risks. |
| IT security specialist(s) | Implements security controls within the IT system in coordination with the cybersecurity analyst(s). |
Explore more GRC articles
Introduction to GRC
Implementing a GRC program
Optimizing a GRC program
Governance
Risk
Compliance
Continuous control monitoring
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