GRC software in the AI era: What Gartner's latest report reveals

TL;DR

Gartner's 2025 Competitive Landscape report confirms that Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) software is entering a new growth phase, driven by AI disruption and rapidly evolving cyber risks. Platforms built for yesterday's compliance environment are under pressure. Organizations in complex, regulated, or high-security environments (government, critical infrastructure, defense) need a new kind of GRC: one that is sovereign-ready, AI-native, and built to work where others can't.

Gartner has confirmed what many of us in the GRC industry already knew: the market is changing faster than most vendors are moving. The October 2025 Competitive Landscape report identified AI disruption and cyber risk as the twin forces reshaping demand and flags a clear opening for platforms that can serve the environments legacy tools were never designed for.

Here's what the report signals, why it matters, and what it means if you're evaluating GRC software today.

Why GRC software is entering a new growth phase

For years, GRC adoption was driven by regulatory checkbox requirements. Organizations bought platforms to pass audits, generate reports, and keep compliance teams out of spreadsheets. That was enough. It's no longer enough.

Gartner's latest report identifies two forces accelerating GRC investment beyond the traditional compliance baseline:

1. AI governance is now a boardroom priority. The rapid proliferation of AI systems across enterprises has created a new class of governance risk. Boards and regulators are asking hard questions about AI accountability, data lineage, and model risk. GRC platforms that can map AI governance requirements (not just IT and operational frameworks) are seeing strong demand signals.

2. Cyber risk has outgrown traditional risk frameworks. The threat landscape has evolved to the point where static, point-in-time risk assessments are structurally inadequate. Organizations need continuous, connected risk monitoring, and that requires a platform that can ingest and interpret evidence in real time, not one that relies on quarterly spreadsheet uploads.

The result is a market in which demand is growing and incumbent platforms are struggling to keep pace.

Why incumbent GRC platforms are under pressure

Gartner's framing of the market as contested between end-to-end incumbents and agile niche players is not a coincidence. It reflects a structural tension that has been building for years.

Legacy platforms were built around a core assumption: that compliance is a static, documentation-driven activity. That assumption shaped their architectures, centralized data models, manual evidence workflows, and cloud-first deployment designed for enterprise IT environments.

Three things have broken that model:

• Complexity has compounded. As organizations expand across jurisdictions, add subsidiaries, and adopt new frameworks, the cost and complexity of managing GRC on a single monolithic platform have become unworkable. Adding a new entity or a new regulatory requirement triggers rework across the entire system.
• AI has raised the bar on intelligence. Users now expect their GRC platform to do more than store data. They expect it to interpret evidence, identify gaps, suggest mappings, and learn from previous assessments. Legacy platforms have bolt-on AI features; they were not designed with intelligence at the core.
• Deployment constraints are real. A significant and growing segment of the market (government agencies, defense contractors, critical infrastructure operators, and organizations in sovereign jurisdictions) cannot use standard cloud-hosted GRC software. Their environments are air-gapped, on-premises, or subject to strict data residency requirements. Most incumbent platforms have no credible answer for these customers.

This is the opening Gartner has identified. And it is exactly the gap that 6clicks was built to close.

What sovereign GRC means and why it matters now

Sovereign GRC is a term that has gained traction precisely because the old model is failing a growing portion of the market.

At its core, sovereign GRC means a platform that can be deployed and operated entirely within the customer's own environment, not the vendor's cloud. It means the customer retains full control over their data, their infrastructure, and their compliance posture.

In practice, sovereign GRC addresses three requirements that standard GRC platforms cannot meet:

1. Data sovereignty and residency. Many governments and regulated industries are now subject to laws that prohibit sensitive compliance data from leaving national borders or being processed on foreign infrastructure. A cloud-hosted SaaS platform, regardless of how good its security controls are, cannot satisfy this requirement.
2. Air-gapped and restricted network environments. Critical infrastructure operators (energy grids, water systems, defense networks) often run on operational technology (OT) systems that are deliberately isolated from the internet. Evidence collection, control monitoring, and risk workflows in these environments require a platform that can operate inside the network perimeter.
3. Program-scale complexity. Large government entities and multinational enterprises managing GRC across hundreds of entities, frameworks, and jurisdictions need a platform that can scale horizontally without multiplying cost and effort. Hub & Spoke architecture, where a central platform governs satellite deployments, is essential for this use case.

Gartner's identification of niche players gaining ground in verticals like government and critical infrastructure is a direct reflection of this shift. Organizations in these segments are no longer willing to accept a platform that was not designed for their environment.

How to evaluate GRC software in an AI-driven market

If you're currently evaluating GRC platforms or reassessing an existing one, here are the questions that matter most in the new GRC landscape:

Does the platform have AI built in, or bolted on?

There is a meaningful difference between a platform that was designed from the ground up with AI at the core and one that has added an AI layer to a legacy architecture. Ask vendors how their AI engine handles evidence mapping, control gap analysis, and framework cross-referencing. Ask for a live demonstration with your actual data.

Can the platform work in your deployment environment?

If your organization has data residency requirements, OT systems, or air-gapped networks, this is not a nice-to-have; it is a mandatory requirement. Most vendors will tell you they can meet it. Ask for reference customers in similar environments.

Can it scale without multiplying your workload?

Many platforms scale vertically: they handle more data but require proportionally more administrative effort. The right platform scales horizontally; adding a new entity, jurisdiction, or framework should not require starting from scratch.

How does it handle evidence collection from restricted environments?

In complex environments, the hardest part of GRC is not the framework mapping; it is getting the evidence out of systems that were not designed to share it. Look for platforms with a connectivity layer that can reach into OT environments, legacy systems, and restricted networks.

Does it support AI governance, not just IT and operational GRC?

As AI governance becomes a mandatory requirement across jurisdictions, from the EU AI Act to emerging frameworks in APAC and the Middle East, your GRC platform needs to be able to handle AI risk and accountability, not just traditional IT controls.

How 6clicks compares to other GRC platforms

Gartner's report identifies the key players contesting the GRC market. The table below shows how 6clicks compares on the dimensions that matter most for organizations in complex, regulated, or high-security environments.

ℹ️ This comparison is based on publicly available information and 6clicks' direct market experience. It is intended to help procurement teams ask the right questions, not to disparage competitors.

How 6clicks helps organizations respond to this shift

6clicks was built specifically for the environment Gartner has now described: a market where AI disruption and cyber risk are forcing organizations to rethink what GRC software needs to do.

Here's how the platform addresses each of the forces Gartner identifies:

• AI disruption: Hailey, 6clicks' AI engine, is not an add-on; it is the operating layer of the platform. Hailey maps evidence to controls automatically, identifies gaps across frameworks, generates assessment responses, and builds a Knowledge Graph that learns from every assessment the organization runs. The result is a platform that gets smarter with use, rather than one that requires more manual effort as complexity grows.

• Cyber risk evolution: 6clicks supports continuous evidence collection via its connectivity layer, integrating with IT systems, OT environments, and restricted networks to pull proof points without manual uploads. This shifts GRC from a point-in-time compliance activity to a continuous assurance posture.

• Sovereign and restricted environment requirements: The 6clicks Sovereign GRC Stack offers deployment options that no other AI-native GRC platform currently matches. Organizations can run 6clicks inside their own environment, on a certified appliance (6clicks GRC Appliance), a sovereign cloud, or a self-hosted instance, without compromising platform capability or AI intelligence.

• Program-scale complexity: Hub & Spoke architecture allows central GRC teams to govern satellite deployments across subsidiaries, partner organizations, and jurisdictions with consistent frameworks, shared content, and aggregated reporting, without requiring each entity to run a separate platform.

Frequently asked questions

What does Gartner's 2025 GRC report mean for organizations evaluating GRC software?

Gartner's report confirms that the GRC software market is being restructured by AI and cyber risk. For organizations evaluating platforms, it means the shortlist criteria need to change: AI capability, deployment flexibility, and the ability to handle sovereign and restricted environments should now be evaluated alongside traditional factors like framework coverage and reporting capability.

What is sovereign GRC and does my organization need it?

Sovereign GRC refers to a governance, risk, and compliance platform that can be deployed entirely within your organization's own environment, not the vendor's cloud. You likely need it if your organization operates under data sovereignty laws, handles classified or sensitive data, manages operational technology (OT) systems, or is subject to strict data residency requirements. Government agencies, defense contractors, and critical infrastructure operators are the primary use cases, but sovereign GRC is increasingly relevant for any organization in a strictly regulated jurisdiction.

How is AI being used in GRC software today?

AI is being used across GRC in three main ways: evidence collection and mapping (automatically identifying which evidence satisfies which controls), gap analysis (identifying control weaknesses against a framework), and content generation (drafting policies, procedures, and assessment responses). Platforms like 6clicks with AI built into the core, rather than added as a feature layer, deliver significantly better results because the intelligence is contextual to the organization's actual risk and compliance data.

How do I evaluate GRC software for a government or critical infrastructure environment?

Start with deployment: can the platform run in your environment, including air-gapped or OT-connected networks? Then, evaluate AI capability, not just whether the vendor has AI, but how it works in practice. Finally, assess program-scale architecture: can the platform manage GRC across multiple entities and frameworks without multiplying administrative effort? Request reference customers in comparable environments and test with your own data before committing.

What GRC frameworks does 6clicks support?

6clicks supports a broad range of frameworks via its Content Library, including ISO 27001, NIST CSF, NIST RMF, SOC 2, Essential Eight, IRAP, NIS2 Directive, EU AI Act, NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF), and many others. Frameworks can be mapped across one another so that evidence collected for one requirement can satisfy controls across multiple frameworks simultaneously, reducing duplication across assessments.

The Gartner report is a signal. The GRC market is changing, and the window to position your organization on the right platform, before the next major compliance or cyber event forces your hand, is now. Register for our webinar: GRC that works where others can't