We live in a world where the enterprise risk management (ERM) landscape changes not quarter by quarter, not day by day, but minute by minute. And yet, there’s a persistent disconnect between the pace of change in the external operating environment and the capabilities and timeliness of risk assessment and reporting. Traditional processes are often too slow, too manual, and siloed by singular risk functions, leaving enterprise risk owners in the dark and on the backfoot of emerging external risks.
A risk framework is valuable for checking the box of governance, risk, and compliance (GRC), but what tools, software, and data intelligence can enterprise risk managers use to support continuous risk management? The answer: AI-powered external intelligence.
In a G2 event featuring Chris Shaw, SVP of Risk Solutions at Signal AI, he shared, “The most important risk signal is not what’s happening today, but what’s likely to happen tomorrow.” AI-powered external intelligence for enterprise risk management can help organizations better navigate uncertainty and identify new and emerging external risks.
Why is external intelligence a must-have for enterprise risk management? Let's explore.
The VUCA environment: Setting the scene of today's enterprise risk management landscape
An old familiar adage is that “the market hates uncertainty,” which certainly rings true for enterprise risk management. External emerging risks are having a growing impact on companies struggling to keep pace with the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) of world events and the information about them.
Let's walk through the growing impact of emerging risks on enterprises and what this means for ERM:
- Volatility: This characterizes the faster pace and progression of emerging risks, for example, the 2024 CrowdStrike IT outage incident. The highly connected nature of global supply chains, IT systems, and social media means critical events can grow faster than previously imagined.
- Uncertainty: There is an inherent uncertainty in emerging risks since they may never have occurred or played out in the same way previously. For example, President Trump’s tariff announcements led to mass uncertainty about how they might widely affect global markets.
- Complexity: The increased connectivity of global supply chains, cloud ecosystems, and social media means risks in one domain can have knock-on effects across organizations and industries. For example, the Ukraine war led to massive gas shortages exacerbated by the destruction of the largest gas pipeline into Germany.
- Ambiguity: Politicians, social media sites, scientific publications, and even some mainstream news sources are increasingly propagating mixed and often conflicting messages, creating a crisis of truth in ways never previously imagined.
What is external intelligence?
External risk intelligence is a subcategory of risk intelligence dedicated to helping senior leaders at the enterprise level of organizations gain the best insights for risk mitigation and navigate not just the internal risks facing their organization but also the external emerging risks in their operating domain.
Hear Chris Shaw, SVP of Risk Solutions at Signal AI, discuss with Lauren Worth, Market Research Analyst at G2, about the necessity of external risk intelligence:
https://www.youtube.com/live/tAbc-gNdWFU?si=HhHn2vcAU4HCNOR9
3 ways external intelligence fosters more proactive enterprise risk management
360-degree view: Capture emerging threats with AI-powered horizon scanning
Traditional methods rely on manual, ad hoc research—sometimes even word-of-mouth—to gather intel on enterprise risks. But that manual and, frankly, human process can include inherent bias or be geographically skewed.
Imagine that you have a risk signal that’s not in your local language, not in your local market, or that happened to your competitor, supplier, vendor, or partner without mentioning your company name. It’s more likely that you might not have a continuous, timely alert set up to catch those emerging threats.
AI-powered external intelligence ingests global news and social media across billions of data points with breadth and depth to deliver more comprehensive risk intelligence.
Timely alerting: Inform more proactive risk mitigation strategies
Currently, functional risk teams (think of the IT department or cybersecurity risk owner) have integrated advanced tools to assess internal risks. However, enterprise risk owners' processes are typically slower, manual, and often laborious.
External intelligence powered by AI offers risk intelligence that serves in near real-time, giving you a heads-up to catch emerging threats.
Streamlined communication: Escalate your prioritized threats to risk committees and Boards via data-driven reporting
Traditional quarterly or bi-annual reporting means that risk assessment and reporting are often outdated by the time they reach the decision-maker's desk.
Enterprise risk owners need a single source truth of their risk profile powered by data-driven external intelligence. This way, the ERM team can drive proactive collaboration with the first line and mitigate risks before they impact business or reputation.
Bottom line: How enterprise risk management teams can move forward with confidence
Risk management, while crucial, is often perceived as a cost center rather than a proactive opportunity for business resilience. However, if global enterprise risk management teams are able to prove ROI and prepare themselves against the VUCA nature of today’s risk environment, they’ll be able to prove a competitive advantage to key stakeholders.
To go from reactive to proactive, AI can help us better transform risks, not just into places to pull back and defend the organization, but also help detect and identify emerging opportunities to propel forward with confidence.
At Signal AI, our AI engine ingests billions of data points from the world’s content and extracts precise risk events data across the global landscape, spanning 226 markets and translating 75 languages. Signal AI’s risk intelligence SaaS platform delivers visualized, prioritized heatmaps and matrixes to transform risk reports for committees, Boards, and first lines of defense. Learn more about the Risk Intelligence platform here.