IBM survey: 80% of EMEA firms saw AI incidents reach the board, few update governance
An IBM survey of more than 3,000 business leaders across EMEA found that 80% said an AI-related incident — such as an agent failure, data exposure, AI-driven decision error or AI security breach — had reached their board or C-suite in the past year, yet fewer than half (40%) said they would change their AI governance policy or frameworks in response. The study also found 98% of executives have formally assigned AI risk responsibility at board level, including 26% with a dedicated board AI committee, while only 37% believe their governance is designed to scale with agentic AI deployment. Respondents were split on liability: 33% cited formal legal or contractual frameworks defining AI vendor liability for agent failures, 32% defined human escalation thresholds, 30% real-time monitoring and audit trails of agent decisions, and 29% the ability to immediately halt agent activity enterprise-wide. IBM's Ana Paula Assis said the AI debate has moved from adoption to governance and accountability, which must be built into how agents operate.
As enterprises move from AI assistants to autonomous agents, governance and liability gaps could become a key bottleneck for scaling AI.