From system of record to system of action
The new mandate for continuous, AI-driven GRC
For CISOs, GRC leaders, and compliance owners whose dashboards show every risk but resolve none of them. Learn why execution, not visibility, is the next GRC capability. Featuring research from Forrester's governance, risk, and compliance platforms landscape, Q4 2025.
What you’ll learn
- Independent market view: How Forrester frames the GRC platform market and how vendors differ across offerings, focus areas, and use cases.
- Where the market is headed: Why AI is reshaping GRC beyond static databases and toward more dynamic, workflow-driven systems with stronger guardrails and agentic capabilities.
- How Scrut is leading the shift: Scrut’s POV on moving from systems of record to systems of action to help teams close remediation loops faster and reduce execution debt.
Disclaimer:
Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.
Description
Your GRC platform can see everything. Dashboards replaced spreadsheets, centralized systems replaced email-driven audits, and risk has never been more visible. Yet the backlog keeps growing. Thousands of alerts, findings, and follow-ups get recorded but never resolved, and that gap between identification and resolution is execution debt, the quiet tax on every GRC team.
This report explains why visibility alone no longer protects you, and what replaces it. It introduces the shift from passive systems of record to active systems of action, breaks down the four levels of GRC automation to show where most "AI-enabled" platforms actually sit, and lays out the trust architecture that makes autonomous execution safe to delegate. It also includes Forrester's Q4 2025 landscape of 30 GRC platform vendors, with market dynamics, core and extended use cases, and guidance on how to pressure-test vendors before you buy. Scrut Automation is among the vendors featured.
If your team spends more time documenting risk than resolving it, this one is for you.
Here are the insights you will walk away with
Why the GRC industry solved visibility and created a new problem in the process: alert backlogs, audit fatigue, and practitioner burnout that persist despite full dashboards.
A maturity model from manual compliance ops to agentic execution, including why most modern "AI-enabled" platforms stall at Level 2 and what Level 3 actually looks like in practice.
How to tell the difference between AI that drives workflows forward and AI layered on top of static data, and why that distinction determines whether your workload actually shrinks.
A three-tier model for AI-human decision-making, from fully automated tasks to human-led judgment calls, with the guardrails and audit trails that make delegation safe.
Research from Forrester's Q4 2025 landscape report covering 30 vendors, the market's main trend, primary challenge, and top disruptor, plus practical advice for evaluating platforms.
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These are the questions this eBook will answer
A system of record centralizes risk data and makes it visible through dashboards and reports. A system of action goes further by executing on that data: triaging failures, assigning ownership, driving remediation, and validating fixes inside the platform. One documents risk. The other resolves it.
AI in GRC has moved beyond drafting policies and summarizing reports. Modern applications include continuous control testing, automated evidence collection, remediation ticket generation with suggested fixes, vendor risk assessment, and security questionnaire acceleration. The report explains which of these deliver real workload reduction and which are veneer.
Agentic AI refers to goal-driven systems that can take an objective, such as remediating a failed control, then determine the path, select tools, execute actions, and adapt as conditions change. Unlike rigid workflow automation, agents don't break when context shifts. The report covers how agentic execution works within guardrails, audit trails, and configurable approvals.
The report defines four levels: Level 0 is manual compliance ops run on spreadsheets and inboxes, Level 1 adds rules and integrations but leaves execution to humans, Level 2 layers assistive AI on top for drafting and summarization, and Level 3 embeds agentic execution into GRC workflows with human oversight. Most platforms marketed as AI-enabled sit at Level 2.
Forrester's guidance in the report: push vendors to demonstrate end-to-end continuous risk management rather than isolated module demos, prioritize AI embedded into core workflows over bolted-on assistants, and favor low-code configurability that reduces consultant dependency. The report profiles 30 vendors by size, geography, industry focus, and extended use cases to shortlist against.
