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The rise of Agentic AI, autonomous systems capable of making thousands of critical decisions daily, demands that GRC leaders abandon reactive, human-speed compliance models. Governance must evolve from after-the-fact auditing into a rigorous, automated onboarding process that defines an AI agent's authority, ethics, and continuous oversight before deployment. This is the only path to transforming AI from a potential liability into a trusted, strategic asset. In our series introduction , we addressed the fundamental shift GRC leaders now face: governing an autonomous digital workforce that operates without human intervention. Governing an AI agent is like hiring and onboarding a new employee. If you want your AI agent to operate safely, responsibly, and in perfect alignment with your business strategy, you must onboard it with the same rigor you apply to your top human talent. Your traditional GRC approach operates at human speed with human accountability. The challenge now is translating foundational governance concepts such as job descriptions, access control, and performance reviews into a framework that governs machines operating at machine speed, 24/7. This transformation isn't optional. It's the non-negotiable step to convert governance from a roadblock into an accelerator for innovation. The Three Pillars of Agent Onboarding Governing an AI agent begins by answering three core questions: Who is it? What can it do? How will we know if it's doing it correctly? Pillar 1: Defining the Digital Job Description Every human employee has a defined scope of authority. Your digital agent requires the same level of clarity, or you risk unauthorized actions, financial commitments, or compliance failures. This goes beyond a general task description; it is the Agent's Mission and Authority Charter. Scope of Authority:  Clearly define the agent's mandate with specific boundaries. Can your procurement agent negotiate new contracts, or only recommend negotiation parameters? Can your HR agent reject candidates, or only flag them for human review? Data Access and Privileges:  Just as you manage access to sensitive data for a human, you must implement granular controls for your agent. The principle of Least Privilege is paramount. An agent should only have the exact access needed to execute its defined job and nothing more. Operational Boundaries: Program "No Go" zones directly into the agent's decision-making parameters. These include all regulatory, policy, and ethical constraints. Example:  "Do not engage with vendors from sanctioned lists," "Do not process transactions exceeding $X without dual approval," "Do not use personally identifiable information in audit logs." Strategic Implication:  Without a defined digital job description, the agent's value creation is a matter of luck. A formal charter converts potential risks into quantifiable, governed decision space. Pillar 2: The Essential Bias Check and Ethical Alignment Bias in an HR agent's screening process or regulatory violations in a financial agent's trading decisions result in 100% liability for your organization. Ethical alignment must be an early, deliberate step in the onboarding process, not a late-stage audit. This involves pre-deployment testing to ensure: Fairness and Non-Discrimination: Test the agent's decision-making across various demographic dimensions to ensure it does not inadvertently discriminate against certain groups or suppliers. Value Alignment:  Verify that the agent's goals are perfectly aligned with corporate values. A cost-optimization agent, for example, must be explicitly constrained from achieving its goal by violating sustainability commitments or quality standards. Transparency and Auditability:  An agent's actions must not be a black box. Establish clear, immutable audit trails from the beginning, showing why every critical decision was made, enabling accountability should an incident occur. Strategic Implication:  Ethical onboarding is a prerequisite for organizational trust. It shifts GRC from penalizing past failures to proactively engineering future compliance. Pillar 3: Establishing Performance Metrics and Real-Time Oversight You measure human employee success through performance reviews. Your digital agent needs continuous, real-time oversight. Traditional periodic, after-the-fact audits are obsolete when an agent can execute thousands of actions before lunch. The shift must be toward continuous, automated monitoring: Risk-Based Metrics: Define metrics that track not only business outcomes (procurement cost savings, customer satisfaction scores) but also policy adherence. Performance reviews should include: Compliance Score : Percentage of actions within defined boundaries Ethical Boundary Score : Frequency of near-miss violations Real-Time Intervention Systems: Implement systems that monitor agent actions as they happen. Essential mechanisms include: The Digital Leash:  Real-time constraint checks that verify every action against predefined rules before execution Circuit Breakers:  Automatic shutdown triggers when patterns indicate potential policy violations or system anomalies The Paradigm Shift: From Reactive to Proactive GRC Reactive Posture (Legacy GRC) Proactive Posture (Agentic GRC) Focus : Auditing logs after  an incident Focus : Intervening during  a violation Control : Human review of sampled data Contro l: Automated constraint enforcement Outcome:  Remediation and fines Outcome : Continuous trust and value realization Strategic Implication:   Real-time GRC transforms the function from a cost centre dedicated to cleanup into a dynamic control tower that guarantees responsible automation at speed. Building the Trust Mandate You cannot deploy a digital workforce you do not trust. This rigorous onboarding process, which mandates clear authority, ethical boundaries, and continuous oversight, is the only way to build that operational trust. The organizations that win the Agentic AI race will not be the fastest to adopt the technology, but the fastest to govern it effectively. By formalizing the AI agent as a new hire, complete with an enforced job description and continuous performance monitoring, you move beyond mere risk mitigation. You become the strategic enabler who directs this powerful new workforce toward responsible and impactful value creation. Take Action: Build Your AI Governance Framework The organizations that thrive will be those whose GRC leaders step forward to build frameworks that unlock, rather than block, this new era of productivity. Archer AI Governance  enables risk managers to manage AI risks, maintain compliance, and promote ethical AI practices across your organization. Our solution provides the real-time oversight, automated controls, and strategic frameworks you need to govern your digital workforce effectively. Ready to transform AI governance from a roadblock to an accelerator?   Contact us  to learn how Archer AI Governance helps you govern AI with confidence.

Risk, compliance, and security leaders are increasingly being challenged to transform the vendor management process from an administrative burden into a strategic advantage. This creates tension between the speed of business and prudent oversight: how do you scale with confidence when every new vendor relationship represents a potential risk?   A typical compliance-first approach, relying on point-in-time assessments, blinds the business to fast-moving risks. For example, it’s estimated that at least  30%  of data breaches can be traced back to a third party 1 . Recent estimates suggest that incidents like cyberattacks can now occur in as little as  51 seconds 2 .   To shift that dynamic, organizations must prioritize tools and methodologies that help support consistent governance, continuous monitoring, and quantitative analysis. This is the blueprint for a TPRM program that generates strategic advantage.     Centralizing TPRM Governance with Technology Platforms We’ve written before about the importance of  centralizing responsibility for your TPRM program  within an organization. Similarly, when processes are fragmented across disparate tools, you end up with an incomplete, lagging view of risk, ultimately degrading decision quality and operational resilience.  Centralized tools can standardize practices, streamline due diligence workflows, and ensure all stakeholders—from procurement to legal—operate from a single, accurate view of risk. This coordinated model helps to eliminate redundant efforts and improve data integrity, driving operational efficiency and cost reduction.    5 Essential Criteria for Selecting a TPRM Platform The most effective Third-Party Risk Management (TPRM) platforms are built to augment a team's expertise, not merely host forms. When comparing vendor risk management software solutions, organizations should evaluate these five impactful criteria: End-to-End Lifecycle Automation.  The platform should automate the TPRM lifecycle, from initial vendor request to continuous monitoring and eventual offboarding. This includes automated risk-tiering that classifies inherent risk factors such as data access and business criticality, and automatically routes them into a proportional assessment.  Intelligence Beyond the Questionnaire.  Relying solely on self-reported questionnaire responses provides a static, point-in-time view of risk. A world-class solution should integrate external security rating services, financial feeds, and regulatory watchlists to provide continuous, real-time insights.   Configurable Risk Assessment and Tiering.  The ideal solution offers flexible, configurable risk assessment models. This flexibility is essential for creating conditional workflows that accelerate low-risk engagements while dedicating more stringent due diligence and human oversight to Tier 1, high-criticality vendors.  Deep GRC Ecosystem Integration.  A TPRM platform should not be an isolated data silo. Its value is amplified by seamless integration with other enterprise systems like procurement, ERP, and overarching risk management systems. This centralizes vendor inventory and risk data, ensuring that contracting decisions are driven by enterprise-wide context.  Broad Risk Domain Coverage.  While cybersecurity and technology risks are more critical than ever, a modern TPRM program must address a full spectrum of risks, including operational resilience, financial health, compliance, privacy, and geopolitical factors. The ideal platform should have assessment libraries and risk-mapping capabilities to govern these diverse domains against standards such as NIST, ISO 27001, and emerging regulations like DORA.     How to Implement Continuous Monitoring in Third-Party Risk Management Archer has previously discussed the utility of  continuous monitoring for TPRM programs . However, when it comes to selecting metrics, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, compare potential metrics against core criteria for the business, and use those to build and document a repeatable framework.   When selecting metrics, organizations should consider what the program must provide: Standardization and Consistency:  To build a centralized, repeatable program, organizations must adopt a standardized risk scoring and rating system. The methodology for calculating risk, for example, mapping vendor adherence to frameworks like ISO 27001, must be applied consistently to ensure an apples-to-apples comparison across disparate business units.     Timeliness and Frequency:  Good metrics must move beyond Key Performance Indicators ( KPIs ), which measure past performance, to embrace Key Risk Indicators ( KRIs ), which are leading measures that provide an early warning of potential threats. This could be achieved by setting explicit thresholds and variation ranges that reveal when performance trends are drifting toward conditions likely to signal an emerging problem.    Contextual Alignment:  A metric is only valuable if it can be tied to the organization's stated risk appetite as well as the third party’s operational importance. For example, a metric that describes a vendor’s financial health may be relevant to the organization’s overall risk, but may only need to be applied to critical, “Tier 1” services, as opposed to a low-impact vendor.    Actionability and Remediation:  The metric must be capable of driving a concrete set of responses, focused on a single unit of analysis. For example, consider whether to monitor a specific  category of risk , such as financial, cybersecurity, or geopolitical, compared to a type of vendor, like tech providers that span global regions or suppliers located near conflict zones.   The challenge isn't collecting data—it's transforming metrics into strategic insights that resonate with business unit leaders and the C-suite. This level of intelligence requires an enterprise platform that contextualizes risk data across the vendor ecosystem and surfaces actionable findings in real time. Building Your Blueprint  The true strategic advantage of modern integrated risk management lies in building a TPRM function that informs future decisions, rather than just analyzing past performance. This requires a platform that centralizes risk data, streamlines workflows, and enables the kind of continuous, data-driven vigilance the industry now demands. Ready to elevate your TPRM program from periodic assessments to continuous, strategic oversight? Archer centralizes vendor risk intelligence, automates lifecycle workflows, and transforms compliance documentation into a competitive advantage. Explore Archer's TPRM capabilities  to see how leading organizations manage complex vendor ecosystems at scale. 1 –  Verizon Business 2025 Data Breach Investigation Report   2 –  CrowdStrike 2025 Global Threat Report

Every renewal season tells a story. For insurers and corporates alike, 2025 has been a year of data friction, shifting capacity, and the first true test of how AI and automation are reshaping risk management. As this year's renewal cycle concludes, the lessons are clear: those who prepared early thrived - and those who didn't, paid for it. The Renewal Squeeze Throughout 2025, renewal teams felt the crunch intensify. Markets hardened again across several sectors - construction, logistics, and energy - while underwriters demanded deeper transparency into exposure data. Most organizations responded the old way: last-minute spreadsheets, inconsistent claims data, and late broker submissions. The result? Extended negotiation cycles that stretched longer than planned, missed early-placement discounts, and policies that reflected data gaps rather than real exposure. It wasn't a market problem. It was a system problem. Three Lessons from 2025 1. Data Readiness is the New Negotiating Power Underwriters are no longer accepting PDF summaries or emailed claims logs. They want structured, validated data - loss histories, asset schedules, safety metrics - all traceable back to source. The companies that won favorable terms this year had already built live data pipelines between RMIS, policy systems, and insurers. They didn't scramble; they submitted. 2. Automation Beats Urgency Renewals are predictable, yet many teams still treat them like a crisis. Organizations using automated renewal calendars, AI-generated exposure summaries, and pre-populated submission packs cut preparation time by up to 70%. For a risk team of five people, that's the equivalent of recovering 350-400 hours per renewal cycle - time redirected from data collation to strategic negotiation. The human role shifted from collation to judgment - deciding what matters, not where to find it. 3. Insights Beat Information A thick renewal pack isn't persuasive. An insight is. When AI models highlighted trends - rising frequency in a certain region, loss drivers by category, or emerging exposure patterns - brokers could have sharper conversations with carriers. Those who arrived with dashboards of data got questions. Those who arrived with answers got terms. From Reactive to Ready Renewals expose every weakness in a risk infrastructure. If your team spent the last quarter of this year assembling data, your RMIS is reactive. If your RMIS continuously aggregates, validates, and learns from claims and exposures, your renewals become a strategic exercise - not an emergency. Modern RMIS platforms make this possible. They connect data automatically across claims, policies, and risk registers, providing live exposure visibility and predictive renewal forecasts months in advance. No manual exports. Just readiness. What Future-Proofing Looks Like The organizations that thrived in 2025's renewal cycle shared common characteristics: Continuous Data Flow – Claims, assets, and coverage stayed synchronized year-round. When renewal season arrived, data was already current, validated, and submission-ready. AI-Driven Renewal Summaries – Systems drafted executive summaries and insurer submissions automatically, pulling from live data sources and applying learned patterns from previous successful renewals. Predictive Analytics – Renewal pricing, retention probability, and claim severity trends were modeled before negotiations began, giving teams the foresight to plan strategy rather than react to quotes. Embedded Collaboration – Brokers and underwriters accessed the same data environment securely, eliminating the email tennis match of clarifications and follow-up requests. This isn't aspirational. Mid-market and enterprise organizations across sectors deployed these capabilities throughout 2025, with measurable impact on renewal outcomes. The 2026 Advantage Next year's renewal cycle will reward foresight. Boards now expect risk teams to treat data as a strategic asset, not a reporting by-product. Underwriters will continue raising the bar for data quality and transparency. And the organizations building automated, AI-ready RMIS architectures now will be the ones negotiating from strength throughout 2026. Renewals will always be a test of relationships, data quality, and preparedness. But with the right architecture, they can also become a competitive advantage. Start 2026 Renewal-Ready with Archer At Archer, we help organizations transform renewal season from crisis to competitive advantage. Our AI-native RMIS platform delivers the continuous data flow, automated insights, and predictive analytics that defined successful renewals. Don't wait to start preparing. Request a demo  to see how Archer can help your team approach 2026 renewals with confidence or visit www.archerirm.com/rmis-ai   to learn more.

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) region is no longer a "follow-the-leader" regulatory landscape. The region is actively innovating, transforming compliance from a cost center into a strategic growth engine. This shift is being driven by three converging forces: aggressive digital and AI-powered transformation initiatives, ongoing sustainability programs, and rapidly escalating cyber risks. The acceleration is most pronounced in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, and South Africa, creating demand for proactive, localized governance, risk and compliance (GRC) models rather than global "one-size-fits-all" approaches. For GRC leaders and their teams, this evolution presents both a profound challenge and a unique opportunity. From Regulatory Lag to Regulatory Leap The MEA region is undergoing deep and rapid regulatory transformation. This isn't incremental change but rather a fundamental shift driven by aggressive national digitalization agendas, the urgent need to manage cyber and digital risk, and sustainability initiatives. What was once a landscape of regulatory importers is becoming one of catalyzed regulatory innovators. Four dominant themes are shaping the conversation across all major markets: AI governance  - Moving from ethical guidelines toward binding regulatory frameworks Enhanced cyber resilience  - Mandatory controls and rapid incident disclosure requirements Data sovereignty  - Localization mandates and sovereign cloud requirements 4.     Sustainability Programs  – Comprehensive reporting aligned with global standards   Global mandates like Europe's Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) and Network and Information Security Directive (NIS2) aren't simply being copied. They're influencing more complex, locally-adapted regulations that create an entirely new compliance environment requiring regional expertise. For C-suite leaders, boards, and Risk-Compliance teams, this means the old GRC playbook is becoming increasingly obsolete. Proactive governance, especially around AI guardrails, third-party risk, and cyber/digital/operational resilience, is now a mandatory and critical board-level conversation. The Twin Engines of Change: Saudi Arabia and the UAE The pace of transformation isn't uniform across MEA. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are setting a breakneck pace, leveraging regulation to position themselves as global digital and financial hubs. Saudi Arabia's Regulatory Renaissance Driven by Vision 2030, the Kingdom is experiencing a full regulatory renaissance. The National Cybersecurity Authority (NCA) has mandated new controls across public and private sectors, including the Essential Cybersecurity Controls (ECC) framework. The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) has introduced stringent operational risk guidelines that mirror DORA-like principles. Most notably, SAMA now requires financial institutions to report cyber incidents within 24 hours, paralleling the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent disclosure rule. Simultaneously, the Saudi Data and AI Authority (SDAIA) is pushing AI governance from voluntary ethical guidelines toward binding legal requirements, signaling that algorithmic accountability will soon be non-negotiable. UAE's Regulatory Innovation Hub The UAE is emerging as a true regulatory innovation hub, particularly within its financial free zones. The Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) have introduced advanced data protection laws modeled on the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) that include specific provisions for AI explainability and algorithmic transparency. The UAE is also a regional pioneer in deploying AI regulatory sandboxes, allowing financial services firms to experiment with emerging technologies under direct regulatory oversight, — a model that balances innovation with consumer protection. For CISOs and procurement leaders, the rise of sovereign cloud mandates and data localization laws in these nations means vendor risk frameworks must be urgently reassessed. GRC solutions rigidly designed for European or North American markets are no longer sufficient. Platforms must be localized or deeply customizable to support multi-jurisdictional compliance across the region. Building Foundations: Qatar and South Africa While the Global Capability Centers (GCC) innovation hubs accelerate, Qatar and South Africa are focused on building mature, robust compliance foundations aligned with global standards. Qatar's Compliance Maturation Qatar is rapidly maturing its regulatory landscape with particular focus on tightening financial compliance. The nation is strengthening its Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) framework to align with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. Enforcement of Qatar's Personal Data Privacy Protection Law (PDPL) is ramping up significantly, with escalating penalties for non-compliance that mirror enforcement trends seen in mature European markets. South Africa's Governance Anchor South Africa's GRC evolution remains firmly anchored by the King IV principles for corporate governance and the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). The regulatory emphasis is increasingly on conduct risk within the financial sector and comprehensive ESG reporting that meets both local and international investor expectations. This regional diversity creates a complex compliance map where a "wait and see" approach is no longer viable. Early-mover advantage will go to organizations that proactively monitor and adapt to evolving ESG and data sovereignty requirements now, particularly in markets like South Africa and Qatar, where enforcement mechanisms are becoming increasingly sophisticated. The Path Forward: From Reactive Compliance to Proactive Resilience The regulatory imperatives across the MEA region can be considered a new baseline and global standard. This reality presents a clear choice for enterprise leaders: treat this evolution as a complex compliance burden, or seize it as a strategic opportunity to build more resilient and competitive organizations. The organizations that will thrive are those embedding proactive, integrated risk management into their core strategic planning. This requires GRC platforms that are agile, localized, intelligent, and capable of rapidly embedding new requirements like AI governance frameworks and rapid incident disclosure workflows directly into operational processes. Success in this environment demands more than technology. It requires an organizational mindset shift toward viewing compliance as a competitive advantage rather than a cost center. Learn More Don't navigate this complexity alone. Discover how Archer can help your organization build a proactive, resilient, and future-ready GRC program tailored specifically for the MEA landscape. Contact us today to schedule a demo.

For decades, risk and insurance professionals have lived inside dashboards. They've clicked through tiles, chosen filters, refreshed charts, exported data, and waited for reports. Dashboards were once the visual promise of digital transformation - but over time, they also became a trap. In 2026, that era begins to end. The Dashboard Problem Dashboards made sense when data lived in silos. They gave executives something visible to prove a system was working. But over time, they've become symptoms of limitation - static, manual, and reactive. Some risk managers log in to one portal for claims, use another for incidents, a third for renewals, and maybe even a fourth for reporting. Each system proudly shows a dashboard summarizing the same delayed data, updated overnight, with little context or intelligence. That model belongs to the last decade. Modern RMIS solutions are not defined by what users see; they're defined by what the system does on its own. From Dashboards to Decisions The new generation of RMIS will be applicationless - meaning users no longer need to "go into the system" to get value from it. AI agents will surface insights directly where people work: in Teams, Outlook, Slack, or even mobile notifications. The RMIS will quietly aggregate events, analyze exposure, and suggest actions in real time. Instead of waiting for monthly risk reports, the platform becomes a living network of decisions - automatically generated, shared, and tracked. The dashboard doesn't disappear; it becomes invisible. How Applicationless RMIS Work 1. Embedded Intelligence AI monitors data streams from claims, policies, and exposures, identifying anomalies or renewal risks before humans look for them. 2. Event-Driven Automation When thresholds are breached - loss frequency, claim cost, policy expiry - workflows trigger automatically. No logins, no clicks. 3. Conversational Access Ask the RMIS a question: "What's our total incurred loss for Fleet in EMEA this quarter?" The answer arrives instantly, in natural language, in your chat window - not buried in a report. 4. Predictive Context Instead of showing a static trend, the system tells you why it's happening and what's likely next. This is what "applicationless" means: the intelligence of the RMIS is everywhere, but the application itself is nowhere. The Business Impact For organizations managing thousands of risk events and insurance transactions, the benefit is profound. Speed : No more waiting for dashboards to refresh - insight is continuous. Adoption : Business users engage with risk data in familiar environments, without learning new systems. Accuracy : Data flows automatically from source systems; no manual exports or spreadsheet uploads. Focus : Risk and insurance teams spend time on strategy, not reporting. The result is a shift from monitoring risk to managing it proactively. Why It Matters Now Risk and insurance functions are under pressure to modernize, automate, and prove value. Yet most existing RMIS deployments still rely on dashboards built ten years ago. As AI becomes native to the architecture, the question changes from "what can the dashboard show me?"  to "what can the system do for me?" That's the defining shift of this decade: the move from passive visibility to proactive intelligence. The Future of RMIS In the same way smartphones replaced maps, calculators, and cameras, the next generation of RMIS will quietly absorb the dashboard into the workflow. The winners won't be the systems with the prettiest charts, but those that deliver answers, actions, and assurance without requiring users to open an app.   Ready to See Applicationless RMIS in Action? Discover how Archer can transform your risk and insurance operations from reactive reporting to proactive intelligence. Request a Demo  to see it in action, or visit www.archerirm.com/rmis-ai  to learn more about how we're redefining what's possible in risk management technology.

This week marked an important milestone in Archer’s decade-long journey in Egypt and our growing partnership with the country’s technology and innovation ecosystem. Archer CEO Bill Diaz visited Cairo to meet with His Excellency President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, alongside Prime Minister Dr. Mostafa Madbouly and Minister of Communications and Information Technology Dr. Amr Talaat, to discuss Archer’s continued investment and strategic expansion in Egypt.    As part of the visit, Bill participated in the presidential roundtable during the Egypt Global Offshoring Summit, joining global technology leaders to discuss Egypt’s role in the future of digital services and next-generation offshoring. The roundtable underscored a shared commitment: advancing Egypt’s position as a global hub for high-value digital capabilities, technical excellence, and innovation.    A Strengthening Partnership with the Government of Egypt   Archer’s collaboration with the Egyptian government continues to gain momentum. With a memorandum of understanding already in place, our discussions this week reinforced a mutual commitment to deepen the partnership and accelerate joint initiatives with MCIT and ITIDA.    Conversations centered on areas where Archer can support Egypt’s national strategy for expanding the offshoring and digital services sector, particularly in compliance, cybersecurity, AI-enabled risk management, and enterprise resilience. These capabilities have become essential for governments and organizations around the world as they navigate increasing regulatory complexity, cyber threats, and global digital transformation.    A Decade of Growth and a Vision for the Future   Archer Egypt’s story began ten years ago with a team of just three people. Today, we are proud to have grown to more than 150 talented professionals in Cairo, representing one of Archer’s largest and fastest-growing global hubs. Our teams in Egypt support customers around the world, contributing to product innovation, customer success, engineering, operations, regulatory intelligence, and more.    This expansion reflects Archer’s confidence in Egypt’s exceptional talent pool and the country’s growing prominence as a regional and global center for technology expertise. Archer Egypt has become a strategic backbone for our global operations, and our continued growth will focus on developing local talent, expanding specialized technical teams, and delivering new capabilities that strengthen Archer’s global product portfolio.  Supporting National Priorities in Digital Transformation   Egypt’s national digital strategy aligns closely with Archer’s mission to help organizations manage risk, strengthen compliance, and build resilience in an increasingly complex world. Through our partnership with MCIT and ITIDA, we aim to support the country’s ambition to expand high-value digital services, attract global investment, and create sustainable, long-term employment opportunities.    Bill’s participation in the presidential roundtable highlighted not only Archer’s commitment to Egypt but also the country’s recognition of Archer as a leader in GRC technology. We are honored to contribute to an ecosystem that is rapidly transforming and positioned for significant global impact.    Looking Ahead   As we enter our second decade in Egypt, Archer is doubling down on its investment in Cairo—expanding our office footprint, growing our workforce, and deepening cross-border collaboration with global teams and customers. Our goal is to continue building a world-class innovation hub in Egypt that supports Archer’s mission and advances the capabilities of organizations worldwide.    Archer’s growth in Egypt is just beginning and I am incredibly proud of the team driving this momentum every day. Together, we are building not only solutions for global risk and compliance challenges but also a lasting impact on Egypt’s digital future.

Authors: Vinod Sreedharan and Sarah Kassoff What happens when your newest “employee”  makes 10,000 decisions before lunch, without asking permission once? This isn’t fiction anymore, rather is the reality of Agentic AI, and it's creating an urgent mandate for GRC leaders everywhere. The shift from algorithms as tools to algorithms as an autonomous digital workforce means we must evolve from reactive risk mitigation to building proactive governance frameworks that don't just control this new workforce but actively enable the business. The question from leaders is no longer "what is this technology?" but "how do we govern it?" The Shift: From Generative AI to Agentic AI For the past few years, business leaders have focused on the usage of Generative AI as a leverage to augment business productivity and efficiencies. From the GRC side, we learned its vocabulary, explored its potential, and built preliminary risk assessments around procedures and policies of use. Now we face a more urgent question: "How do we govern and control it?" This shift is driven by the rise of Agentic AI. We're no longer dealing with predictive models that simply offer recommendations. We're now confronting autonomous AI agents that can plan and execute complex tasks, learn from their interactions, and operate independently. They are, in effect, a new digital workforce. Here's what makes this different: Imagine an AI agent authorized to optimize supply chain procurement. Operating autonomously, it could renegotiate 50 vendor contracts in an hour, analyze market conditions in real-time, and automatically redirect shipments based on emerging risks. But without proper guardrails, it might violate data privacy regulations, create unauthorized financial commitments, or inadvertently discriminate against certain suppliers. This workforce operates at machine speed, 24/7. It can be designed to act without waiting for human approval on every decision. The profound implication for GRC leaders? Our traditional, human-speed-governance models are already obsolete. Auditing an agent after it has taken a thousand actions is a failed strategy. We must govern in real-time.   The Pivot: From Risk Mitigation to Strategic Enablement The natural instinct for any risk or compliance professional is to mitigate risks. We see a new technology, identify its potential harms, and build walls to contain it. With Agentic AI, this reactive, conservative posture is a strategic error. Why? Because a governance framework that only says "no" will be bypassed, ignored, or will simply cede the future to faster competitors. The modern GRC leader understands a different mandate: The goal is not to stop the digital workforce, but to strategically direct it.   Thereby, GRC leaders need to mandate, influence and catalyze building the ethical, trust-enhancing, and operational guardrails that allow these agents to operate safely, responsibly, effectively, and in perfect alignment with business strategy. This is the pivot from GRC as a defense-only function to GRC as a strategic enabler. Organizations that only focus on mitigating Agentic AI's risks will be outmaneuvered. The winners will be those who build governance frameworks that enable innovation thereby allowing them to deploy their digital workforce responsibly and effectively, with speed, confidence, and trust. The Accountability Challenge The pressure to adopt Agentic AI is immense. Business leaders see a direct path to automating complex workflows and unlocking profound value. For GRC leaders, this autonomy presents a fundamental challenge: accountability. We're no longer just mitigating flawed outputs and poor decisions but we're critically governing independent actions and critical outcomes. When an autonomous agent accesses sensitive customer data, commits company resources, or engages with third parties, your organization retains 100% of the liability. Without a new framework, you risk compliance failures and data breaches that remain invisible until it's too late. Consider these emerging scenarios: An HR agent conducting thousands of resume screenings with embedded bias A financial agent making trading decisions that inadvertently violate regulations A customer service agent sharing proprietary information without proper authorization Your organization cannot deploy a digital workforce it doesn't trust.  Your role as a GRC leader is to build that trust, transforming governance from a roadblock into an accelerator for innovation. A New Governance Model for a New Workforce A human employee has a manager, a job description, and performance reviews. A digital agent needs the same. It requires a governance structure that is balanced, automated, continuous, and integrated. Here's how the paradigm must shift: The Old Model (For Tools) The New Framework (For Agents) Focus:  Risk Mitigation Focus:  Strategic Enablement Method:  Manual, static policies Method:  Automated, dynamic guardrails Timing:  Periodic, after-the-fact audits Timing:  Continuous, real-time monitoring Goal:  Prevention and restriction Goal:  Governance, control and alignment   Your Role as the Architect GRC leaders must become the architects of this new framework. We're responsible for: Defining each agent's "job description" and scope of authority Programming ethical boundaries and decision-making parameters Building oversight systems that monitor continuously Establishing intervention mechanisms before deployment Creating audit trails that make agent actions transparent The digital workforce is here. It will not wait for our governance models to catch up. Take Action Now The organizations that thrive will be those whose GRC leaders step forward to build frameworks that unlock, rather than block, this new era of productivity. Archer AI Governance  enables risk managers to manage AI risks, maintain compliance, and promote ethical AI practices across your organization. Our platform provides the real-time oversight, automated controls, and strategic frameworks you need to govern your digital workforce effectively. Contact us to learn how Archer AI Governance can help you govern AI with confidence. The Governing Digital Workers Series Over the coming weeks, we'll provide a comprehensive blueprint for governing your digital workforce. Each installment will offer practical frameworks, implementation strategies, and real-world considerations. Upcoming Topics: Your Next New Hire is an AI Agent Why you must "onboard" your digital agent with the same rigor as a human employee from defining job descriptions and access privileges to conducting bias checks and establishing performance metrics. The Agent Workforce Charter The strategic blueprint for defining an agent's mission, operational boundaries, and rules of engagement. Learn how to create clear mandates that ensure safe, aligned outcomes while enabling autonomous action. Operationalizing AI Governance The essential, non-negotiable controls that translate governance strategy into operational reality. We'll explore mechanisms like the "Digital Leash" (real-time constraint systems) and "Circuit Breakers" (automatic shutdown triggers) that keep agents operating within bounds. The Trust Premium How to reframe AI governance not as a cost center, but as the C-suite's engine for building stakeholder trust and creating defensible competitive advantage. Organizations with robust AI governance can move faster, not slower.

The era of static risk systems is ending. Risk Management Information Systems (RMIS) have long been the backbone of how organizations capture, manage, and analyze incidents, claims, and insurance data. Yet for many, these systems have barely evolved in two decades. Spreadsheets still underpin key renewal processes. Loss runs still arrive as unstructured PDFs. Analytics still depend on manual manipulation rather than machine intelligence. That’s about to change - and fast. RMIS will look and behave very differently in the near future. Four major shifts will define the next generation.   1. AI-Driven Data Ingestion and Clarity The first wave of transformation is already here. AI can now read policy documents, loss runs, adjuster notes, and engineering reports in seconds - extracting and verifying data that previously took teams weeks to compile. This means the RMIS of 2026 will no longer rely on human data entry or manual reconciliations. Systems will  self-clean , identify gaps, and even recommend corrections based on past behavior and benchmark data. The result is a cleaner, more complete foundation for analytics and renewal submissions - something insurers, brokers, and risk leaders will increasingly demand. 2. Connected Workflows Across Risk, Insurance, and Operations The traditional RMIS was a claims and policy repository. The modern RMIS is a  risk operations platform  - one that connects incidents, assets, suppliers, and corrective actions into a single flow.  In manufacturing, this might mean linking a production incident to a supplier’s insurance certificate; in healthcare, it could mean tracing a claim back to a procedural deviation; in transportation, tying an incident to telematics and maintenance records. By 2026, integration will be native, not a project - with APIs, connectors, and low-code workflows allowing risk data to move freely across systems. 3. Predictive and Prescriptive Analytics Once the data foundation and connections are in place, the next step is intelligence. RMIS platforms are evolving from backward-looking reports to forward-looking models. Expect to see predictive loss forecasting, automated claim triage, and risk scoring by asset or supplier. More advanced users will combine internal and external data - weather, geopolitical risk, ESG, and cyber signals - to anticipate exposures before they escalate. By 2026, risk managers won’t just know  what happened , but  what’s likely to happen next  and  what to do about it . 4. Enterprise-Wide Ownership and Value Finally, the role of RMIS is expanding beyond the insurance function. Finance, ESG, EHS, and Supply Chain teams are demanding access to the same data to inform decisions. RMIS will therefore move closer to the enterprise - becoming a strategic tool for resilience and performance, not just insurance administration. 2026 marks the start of a new era for RMIS - one defined by automation, intelligence, and connected risk insight. At Archer, we believe the winners will be those who modernize early: replacing legacy systems with platforms built for AI, integration, and action. Explore these capabilities and see how your organization can turn risk into strategic advantage at https://www.archerirm.com/rmis-ai .

Authors : Tahmina Day and Vinod Sreedharan Modern enterprises know vendor management is more than signing contracts and checking compliance boxes. As organizations depend more on external partners for critical services, sensitive data, and daily operations, the need for a disciplined, integrated approach has never been greater. The right approach transforms vendor management from a reactive, resource-heavy burden into a streamlined capability that empowers teams to focus on strategic priorities and innovation rather than repetitive administrative tasks. The Cost of Fragmented Vendor Management Many organizations still treat vendor oversight as a collection of disconnected tasks. Due diligence happens in one silo, onboarding in another, and monitoring and contract management in yet others. This fragmentation drains resources and prevents teams from focusing on what creates value: innovation and growth. The consequences are significant: Critical information uncovered during assessments never reach monitoring teams. Performance issues identified during active relationships fail to inform future vendor selection. Contract renewals proceed without a clear relationship history. Early warning signs are overlooked until they escalate into costly disruptions. The result? Organizations miss opportunities to strengthen partnerships and struggle to prove how vendor management supports business success. Scaling Workflows to Scale with Risk Not every vendor carries the same risk and management approaches shouldn’t treat them as if they do. Leading organizations tailor workflows to the relationship: High-risk vendors  undergo rigorous assessment of financial health, cybersecurity, compliance, and resilience. Medium-risk vendors  receive targeted evaluations focused on specific exposures. Low-risk vendors  complete streamlined checks that confirm basic qualifications without unnecessary overhead. This risk-based approach continues throughout the relationship. Critical vendors receive continuous monitoring with real-time alerts for significant changes. Standard vendors undergo periodic reassessment aligned with contract cycles. Low-impact relationships get annual reviews focused on performance and basic compliance. The key is balancing consistency with flexibility—using configurable frameworks that standardize evaluation criteria while accommodating unique relationship requirements. Turning Data into Intelligence Strong vendor management depends on actionable intelligence, not just information. Internal performance reviews tell only part of the story. External data sources fill critical gaps, such as: Security ratings that reveal changes in cybersecurity posture Financial monitoring that signals credit deterioration before service delivery is impacted Regulatory databases that flag compliance violations By connecting this intelligence with internal metrics, contract terms, and business impact assessments, organizations create a full picture of vendor performance. This enables proactive decisions—spotting risks early, spotting performance trends that suggest improvement opportunities, and making informed decisions about renewals and transitions. Automating Routine, Preserving Judgment Vendor management involves countless routine tasks that eat up time without adding strategic value. Automation reduces that burden, coordinating activities like document collection, approvals, and provisioning during onboarding. It also monitors performance indicators and escalates exceptions while filtering out noise. Importantly, automation doesn’t replace oversight. It accelerates decision cycles, providing managers with the intelligence needed to act quickly and confidently when issues arise. Building Resilient Vendor Ecosystems Organizations with mature vendor management develop resilient ecosystems that adapt to changing requirements and external disruptions. That resilience comes from: Diversification:  avoiding dependence on a single supplier for critical services Capability development:  investing in key relationships to improve outcomes Transition readiness:  maintaining alternatives and transition plans for rapid response to vendor failures These organizations develop performance management approaches that strengthen vendor relationships while maintaining accountability. Rather than relying solely on contract enforcement, they create collaborative improvement processes that help vendors succeed while protecting organizational interests. From Operations to Strategic Advantage When vendor lifecycle management is integrated, it becomes a foundation for strategy. Organizations with solid lifecycle management capabilities possess the data, processes, and relationship intelligence required for sophisticated decisions about partnerships, risk tolerance, and ecosystem optimization. This operational strength transforms vendor relationships from cost centers into sources of competitive advantage—whether through innovative partnerships, market expansion, or business transformation. The path forward requires platforms that unify vendor lifecycle management while providing the flexibility and intelligence to optimize every relationship. Ready to transform your TPRM program from compliance burden to strategic advantage? Discover how Archer's third-party governance solutions can centralize your risk management, strengthen vendor partnerships, and drive measurable business value. Learn more about Archer's TPRM capabilities  and contact us for a demo   today.

Archer Summit 2025 was one for the books. From September 15–18, hundreds of Archer clients, partners, and employees came together in Chicago for four days of learning, collaboration, and celebration.  This year’s Archer Summit combined powerful keynotes, client success stories, and engaging workshops with moments to connect and celebrate our community. It was a fitting tribute to two decades of progress, and a launchpad for what’s ahead.  Learning Together  Throughout the week, breakout sessions brought the Archer community face-to-face with the latest thinking in risk, compliance and AI, including:  SaaS journeys : BECU, NXP Semiconductors, and Quest Diagnostics shared their experiences moving to Archer SaaS, highlighting faster time to value, reduced complexity, and stronger scalability.   Risk and compliance innovation : Sessions showcased how organizations like Ally Financial, Manulife, SouthState Bank, and CVS are advancing AI governance, evolving compliance, and embedding risk awareness into daily operations.   Industry focus : Sector meetings and panels provided targeted discussions for public sector, healthcare, financial services, energy, and supply chain leaders.   Future of Archer : Product-focused sessions such as:   “Smarter, Faster, Together: Introducing AI in Archer SaaS,”  “Your Voice in Our Vision: Introducing Product Pulse,”   and “What If? Unleashed with Evolv Intelligence”    These sessions gave attendees a first look at new capabilities while inviting their input to shape what comes next. Every session had one theme in common: organizations are using Archer to simplify complexity, accelerate progress, and align risk programs with strategy.  Celebrating Our Clients and Partners  A highlight of every Archer Summit is recognizing the clients and partners who are leading the way. At the Archer Client Awards, we honored organizations and individuals making a difference, including:   ADNOC  Akira Muranaka  Ally Bank  CME  Corebridge  Dell  EY  Karta  Kellanova  Manulife Financial  NXP Semiconductors  SMBC    These awards celebrate the diversity of our global community and the impact that’s possible when great teams harness Archer to its fullest potential.  Connecting Beyond the Sessions   As day three wrapped up, attendees left with notebooks full of insights and plenty of conversations to carry forward. From SaaS migrations and risk libraries to AI governance and client innovation, Wednesday reinforced why Archer Summit remains the must-attend event for the risk and compliance community.  The day ended on a high note as everyone looked forward to the Customer Appreciation Party—a chance to unwind and celebrate our 20th anniversary together. With Chicago as the backdrop, this milestone Archer Summit is not only showcasing how far we’ve come but also the vibrant community shaping what’s next.  Looking Ahead  Attendees left Chicago inspired, armed with new strategies, and excited about what’s ahead for Archer and the risk management community.  As we close the book on Archer Summit 2025, we want to extend a heartfelt thank you  to our clients, partners, and employees. Your passion, insights, and collaboration made this 20th anniversary celebration a success.  We can’t wait to build on this momentum and welcome you back next year. See you at Archer Summit 2026 in Orlando!

Without effective policy management, organizations face significant challenges. Inadequate management of critical content can lead to outdated or inconsistent policies, creating confusion and increasing the risk of non-compliance with external and internal policies. This makes it challenging to meet regulatory demands and can lead to discrepancies during audits, resulting in penalties and reputational damage. The inability to quickly adapt policies in response to new regulations can leave enterprises vulnerable to legal and financial risks. Effective policy management is not just a choice; it's necessary for enterprises striving to maintain compliance and mitigate risk. The ability to efficiently manage critical content using robust workflows and advanced editing capabilities is vital; it's a comprehensive solution. This ensures that policies are always up-to-date and aligned with current regulatory demands, enabling organizations to swiftly respond to new requirements and pass audits with confidence. By adopting a comprehensive policy management strategy, enterprises can streamline their processes, enhance governance, and safeguard their reputation in an increasingly complex environment. The solution is to adopt a centralized policy management system that includes workflows to streamline the review and approval process, ensure version control to keep track of changes and ensure consistency, and robust editing capabilities to facilitate all policy updates. This strategy not only ensures that you are securely managing your critical documents and keeping your policies up to date, but also significantly reduces the risk of non-compliance and improves overall operational efficiency. With this system in place, you can rest assured that you have a reliable and scalable solution to navigate the complexities of changing policies and regulations. We're excited to announce that Archer Document Governance is now integrated with Archer, offering a seamless policy user experience. Archer customers who have Document Governance will be automatically logged into Document Governance when they are logged into their Archer instance, making policy creation a breeze. With Document Governance, you can effortlessly ensure you have a robust governance process managing your critical documents and effectively managing your policies. Features at a Glance Modern policy life cycle management dashboard Archer authentication for seamless login to Document Governance Approval workflow and Archer record creation Collaborate to draft policy content Benefits Streamlined policy program management Maintain a clear chain of custody throughout the policy lifecycle Respond to audit requests promptly Improved control and compliance across critical documents and content Contact us  to learn more about how Archer Document Governance can securely manage your critical documents and policies.

The EU NIS 2 Directive is sparking heated debates across the European Union. Is its scope too wide, burdening small businesses or is it a necessary shield against evolving cyber threats? Are strict incident reporting requirements essential or do they create unnecessary burdens for minor incidents? Does the high cost of compliance stifle innovation or is it a critical investment in security?   No matter where you stand on these arguments, one thing is clear: GRC (governance, risk and compliance) can be your powerful ally in navigating the NIS 2 landscape. Let's explore how.   Addressing the Scope Challenge If you're concerned about the broad scope of NIS 2, particularly as a small business, GRC can help you identify and prioritize your most critical assets and vulnerabilities. Automated risk assessment tools can streamline this process, ensuring you focus your resources where they matter most.   On the other hand, if you believe the wide scope is necessary, GRC can empower you to monitor and secure a broader range of systems and processes. Cloud-based security solutions offer scalability and flexibility, adapting to your evolving needs as threats emerge.   Streamlining Incident Reporting Whether you see strict incident reporting as essential or burdensome, GRC can make the process more efficient. Automated incident response platforms can help you detect, analyze, and report incidents quickly and accurately. This reduces the manual effort required and ensures compliance with NIS 2 requirements.   In addition, machine learning algorithms can help you filter out false positives and focus on genuine threats, easing the burden of reporting minor incidents.   Balancing Cost and Innovation If you're worried about the high cost of compliance hindering innovation, consider that GRC can drive cost savings in the long run. By automating security processes, you can reduce the need for manual intervention, freeing up resources for innovation.   Moreover, cloud-based security solutions often offer lower total cost of ownership. By eliminating the overhead of technical resources and assets, they're more affordable for smaller businesses. This allows you to invest in security without breaking the bank, leaving room for innovation and growth.   Leveraging GRC The EU NIS 2 Directive may be polarizing, but GRC offers solutions for both sides of the debate. Whether you're a small business concerned about the scope, struggling with incident reporting, or worried about the cost of compliance, GRC can help you overcome these challenges.   By embracing innovative solutions, you can not only comply with NIS 2 but also enhance your overall security posture and drive innovation. Instead of viewing NIS 2 as a burden, consider it an opportunity to leverage GRC for a safer and more resilient future.   For more information on the EU NIS 2 Directive, read the Gartner® report “Quick Answer: How to Effectively Prepare for NIS 2 ,” compliments of Archer for a limited time.   We also encourage you to speak with one of our experts  to explore how Archer can support you in initiating or advancing your operational resilience program.      GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.   Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.