Ever-expanding new regulatory requirements is the biggest challenge compliance professionals say they are facing over the next two years, according to a KPMG report.
The 2026 KPMG Global Chief Ethics and Compliance Officer Survey found that 33% of chief compliance officers are concerned about new regulatory requirements, followed by 31% who said the biggest challenge their organisations will face over the next two years will be data analytics and predictive modelling for compliance monitoring and risk management.
A quarter of respondents said implementing technological tools would be a concern, with 24% also saying upskilling compliance professionals to use digital and tech tools is another top challenge.
Jennifer Shimek, a partner in KPMG’s ethics, compliance and regulatory practice in the US, said: “CCOs face an escalating challenge to keep pace with both technological threats and regulatory demands, necessitating sustained investment in both tools and people to avoid reputational harm.”
Compliance professionals are also hopeful if cautious about the potential of AI in compliance work, with 68% of respondents saying they feel ‘mixed, leaning positive’ about AI use to improve compliance efficiencies and effectiveness, indicating they have seen more benefits than challenges. Only 7% said they were leaning negative, having experienced more challenges than benefits with AI.
For those compliance professionals who are already deploying AI, 50% said they are using it for compliance risk assessment and management, followed by 44% who said they are using it for data visualisation and predictive analytics, and the same amount for employee training and awareness.
Verena Hinze, a partner in KPMG’s governance, risk, compliance and forensic function in Germany, said: “It can be difficult to understand how AI algorithms arrive at their decisions. This ‘black box’ challenge makes it difficult for CCOs to validate compliance decisions and identify bias. As AI automates more entry-level tasks, junior employees have fewer opportunities to develop the expertise needed to evaluate AI outputs – skills that compliance teams will need in the future.”
When it comes to improving compliance process efficiency, 58% of respondents said their top area of focus is cybersecurity and information protection, followed by data privacy (46%), third-party risk management (38%) and corporate conduct and ethics (37%).
The survey canvassed 725 senior ethics and compliance officers across six industry sectors in eight countries: Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US.
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