ESG reporting requires a focus on outcomes and financial KPIs, not just outputs. Current standards, like SASB and CSRD, mostly emphasize activities without mandating targets, undermining sustainability goals. Recommendations include requiring performance-based targets and linking sustainability to business value for effective decision-making.
CISO roles have evolved: cybersecurity is now a business imperative, with increased personal liability for executives. Accountability issues arise as CISOs lack control over security processes, leading to blind spots and breaches. To rectify this, organizations need shared visibility and a true system of record. Collaborative risk management spreads responsibility, enhancing cyber resilience and compliance. Transparency builds trust and positions security as an organizational priority, reducing risks and potential liabilities.
https://www.scworld.com/perspective/shared-accountability-the-new-foundation-of-cyber-leadership
TLDR: Cybersecurity budgets are slowing as economic concerns grow, despite a significant rise in AI spending. Cybersecurity spending increased 4% in 2025, down from previous years. The outlook for 2026 shows potential growth in overall cybersecurity expenditures surpassing $520 billion, yet budgets may be constrained due to financial pressures. Effective budgeting practices are crucial to navigate these challenges.
Digital resilience will become crucial in 2026 due to increased regulatory scrutiny and evolving cyber threats. Organizations must prioritize critical services and enhance incident response capabilities. Legal obligations will expand, particularly in finance, healthcare, and essential sectors, driven by legislation like the UK’s CSR Bill and the EU's NIS2 Directive. Burgeoning supply chain risks highlight the need for rigorous supplier assessments. AI presents both opportunities for improving resilience and new vulnerabilities. Effective governance, proactive risk management, and clear communication will distinguish resilient organizations in a complex threat landscape.
A healthy relationship between the CISO and CIO is key to organizational security and success, but common warning signs of trouble include undiscussed disagreements, exclusion from planning, undermining, lack of direct communication, and technology overlap. These strains often stem from unclear roles, conflicting priorities, and insufficient collaboration, leading to increased risk and operational misalignment. To fix this, both sides should align on risk and business goals, clarify responsibilities, maintain regular communication, and focus on collaborative business enablement.
AI competencies are now central to IT jobs, with 78% of postings in advanced economies requiring these skills. Most fast-growing roles involve AI, and soft skills are increasingly important. While automation may lead to significant job loss, even more positions will be created, although reskilling—not just upskilling—is essential for workers displaced by technology. Entry-level job ads are dropping in some sectors due to AI, but retiring professionals will open new opportunities for younger workers. Companies are adjusting hiring and training practices, and new entry-level roles will require more complex knowledge work. Europe is slower than English-speaking regions to invest in these workforce changes.
IT teams often fail to exceed expectations due to spending too much time on maintenance, lacking clear business objectives, acting more like service vendors than partners, and not always getting the necessary participation from business units. Ineffective project prioritization leads to overcommitment, while rising demands—especially for AI—can outstrip IT’s capacity. Additionally, many IT professionals don’t naturally think in business terms, which hinders their ability to deliver high-value results. Addressing these issues involves adopting automation, clarifying outcomes, fostering partnership, enforcing prioritization, setting realistic expectations, and training staff in business-oriented and AI skills.
https://www.cio.com/article/4094684/7-reasons-it-teams-fail-to-exceed-your-expectations.html
Zero trust adoption steps: Jonathan Edwards outlines practical zero trust implementation in stages, emphasizing multi-factor authentication, access control improvement, and context in access decisions. He includes cleanup tasks, continuous monitoring, and metrics, stressing alignment with business goals for success.
https://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2025/12/01/incremental-zero-trust-adoption-video/
Compliance frameworks in cybersecurity, like NIST, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, are often viewed as burdens, but in reality, they drastically reduce breach risk, costs, and damage. These frameworks establish concrete controls that address predictable weaknesses, enforce accountability, require robust incident response planning, and strengthen supply chains by holding vendors to higher standards. While compliance is not a guarantee against all attacks, it creates discipline, closes security gaps, and should be treated as a baseline for security, not an endpoint. Organizations that embrace compliance as a strategic asset, rather than a box-checking exercise, outperform less structured competitors and help protect broader society.
Taylor Wessing provides insights on upcoming AI regulations and developments for 2026, highlighting the maturity of AI technologies and compliance requirements due to the EU AI Act. Companies must prepare for risks associated with high-risk AI systems, including implementing risk management protocols and achieving dataset quality. The introduction of Codes of Practice will guide compliance, while potential changes in personal data use regulations could impact AI development. The firm also anticipates discussions on copyright, AI liability insurance, and the integration of AI agents into workflows, emphasizing the necessity for standardization and cybersecurity in an evolving landscape marked by both innovation and increased threat actor sophistication.
https://www.taylorwessing.com/en/interface/2025/predictions-2026/2026-the-year-ai-grows-up
