- Gartner Survey Finds Information Integrity Risk Now the Top Concern Among Risk Leaders in First Quarter of 2026
- Senior Enterprise Risk Executives No Longer See Low-Growth Economic Environment as Emerging Risk
The Gartner Quarterly Emerging Risk Report series gathers insights and perspectives from enterprise risk management (ERM) leaders, risk management professionals, auditors and senior executives on emerging and over-the-horizon risks.
The survey of 337 senior risk and assurance executives introduced AI workforce preparedness as a critical new risk and features an expanded issue spotlight on responding to geopolitical uncertainty (see Table 1).
“The emerging risks in the first quarter of 2026 show new concern related to AI in the workforce and how preparedness is an increasing issue,” said Gamika Takkar, Director, Research, in the Gartner Risk & Audit Practice.
The survey also showed that the low-growth economic environment, which relates to financial instability, high unemployment and inflation, no longer ranks as a top emerging risk as it had registered in the survey for the last half of 2025.
Figure 1: Top Emerging Risks of 1Q26
![[Image Alt Text for SEO]](https://emt.gartnerweb.com/ngw/globalassets/en/newsroom/images/graphs/2026-05-12_emerg_risks_1q26.png)
Source: Gartner (MAY 2026)
Issue Spotlight: Responding to Geopolitical Uncertainty
To approach these uncertainties, leaders should use a scenario matrix to define the focal issue, identify driving forces, craft potential scenarios, explore implications and develop action plans.
“Starting with the highest-priority scenario, organizations should create an action plan outlining response options to take now and define early-warning triggers for future action,” said Takkar.
