{"id":139343,"date":"2026-09-14T09:01:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T08:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/?p=139343"},"modified":"2026-09-14T09:02:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T08:02:48","slug":"emea-organisations-facing-a-shadow-agent-crisis-as-boardroom-anxiety-over-personal-liability-grows-veeam-research-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/2026\/09\/14\/emea-organisations-facing-a-shadow-agent-crisis-as-boardroom-anxiety-over-personal-liability-grows-veeam-research-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"EMEA organisations facing a \u2018shadow agent&#8217; crisis as boardroom anxiety over personal liability grows, Veeam research finds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Veeam research highlights growing concerns over unmanaged AI workflows across EMEA, as rising regulatory pressure and executive accountability put stronger governance, data security and oversight at the heart of enterprise AI adoption.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>New research from Veeam Software, a Data and AI Trust Company, has revealed a growing \u2018shadow agent\u2019 crisis across EMEA enterprises. According to the findings, organisations are battling unmanaged AI on two fronts. On the data security front, 70% of organisations admit that automated AI workflows are interacting with sensitive corporate data without full oversight. Meanwhile, on the governance side, IT is losing control, with 67% reporting that employees are creating autonomous AI workflows that IT cannot fully track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As organisations race to operationalise AI, the findings highlight a critical challenge: ensuring the data powering AI agents remains trusted, secure and resilient. Without the right governance, visibility and protection, businesses risk exposing sensitive information, increasing compliance risks and undermining the trusted data foundation required to scale AI safely and confidently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rising regulatory pressure and \u2018corporate accountability\u2019 are also pushing AI governance out of the technical back office and into the boardroom. Nearly one-third of organisations (32%) say this pressure is already creating tension or conflict among executives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>AI governance is now a C-suite liability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As compliance obligations across EMEA become more complex with the introduction of personal legal responsibility on C-level executives for cyber-resilience and regulatory compliance, senior leaders are feeling the heat. The research found that 58% of the enterprises surveyed now find themselves under new corporate accountability laws. Worryingly, however, one in 10 respondents (12%) stated that exact individual responsibilities are shared and unclear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This increased responsibility is having a clear impact on executive teams:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Forty percent are concerned about personal liability or consequences<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thirty-nine percent report increased board-level scrutiny<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thirty-seven percent say it has increased personal stress or anxiety<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Thirty-two percent say it has created tension or conflict with other executives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the research also points to a positive shift: Forty-five percent say increased accountability has improved alignment and focus at the leadership level.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1357\" height=\"2034\" src=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/09\/Tim-Pfaelzer-June-2026-edited.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-139346\" style=\"width:156px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/09\/Tim-Pfaelzer-June-2026-edited.webp 1357w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/09\/Tim-Pfaelzer-June-2026-edited-200x300.webp 200w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/09\/Tim-Pfaelzer-June-2026-edited-683x1024.webp 683w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/09\/Tim-Pfaelzer-June-2026-edited-768x1151.webp 768w, https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2026\/09\/Tim-Pfaelzer-June-2026-edited-1025x1536.webp 1025w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1357px) 100vw, 1357px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>\u201cExecutives have never had more to think about around data governance and cyber-resilience regulations,\u201d said Tim Pfaelzer, General Manager and Senior Vice President for EMEA at Veeam. \u201cWhile the increased stress and tension are completely understandable, if the result is better alignment at the board level, the organisation will be far better positioned to trust its data and AI governance in the agentic era. With greater alignment ultimately comes better data governance, visibility and protection across the organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u2018Shadow agents\u2019 are spreading across EMEA faster than governance can keep up<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The findings reveal a fragmented approach to AI governance across EMEA. Germany faces particularly acute challenges, with 81% of leaders admitting that automated workflows are interacting with sensitive data without oversight, while 79% report employees creating \u2018shadow workflows\u2019 that IT teams cannot track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The UK is facing similar challenges, with 75% of organisations saying they lack adequate oversight of AI agents interacting with sensitive data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is happening despite significant investment in more controlled AI environments. Across EMEA, 41% of organisations are building their own local or sovereign AI models specifically to combat Shadow AI. Nearly half (49%) are adopting a hybrid approach to do this, using a blend of local and sovereign models for sensitive data and global models for general tasks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>MEA organisations are the outlier here, with 41% relying entirely on global AI providers for all use cases \u2013 suggesting the EU regulatory landscape is having a major impact on AI governance within EMEA enterprises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEMEA organisations are still getting to grips with governance in the new agentic era,\u201d added Tim Pfaelzer, General Manager and Senior Vice President for EMEA at Veeam. \u201cBut the data shows the industry is having the wrong conversation about AI trust. Trying to control thousands of autonomous agents one-by-one simply doesn\u2019t scale. To make AI safe at the enterprise level, organisations need to secure, govern and understand the data those agents depend on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>EU AI Act confidence gap exposes governance risk<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Adding to this pressure is the <em>EU AI Act<\/em>. The Act is already beginning to take effect, with further compliance deadlines rolling out through to 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The research revealed that while the overwhelming majority (83%) of leaders feel the Act will have a positive impact on organisations and the wider landscape, 62% feel \u2018ambiguities or grey areas\u2019 may create compliance risk, while a further 63% fear it may introduce unintended operational or legal risks. The UK and Germany are particularly concerned here, with 74.4% and 73.6%, respectively, viewing the ambiguities as a compliance risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Veeam research highlights growing concerns over unmanaged AI workflows across EMEA, as rising regulatory pressure and executive accountability put stronger governance, data security and oversight at the heart of enterprise AI adoption. New research from Veeam Software, a Data and AI Trust Company, has revealed a growing \u2018shadow agent\u2019 crisis across EMEA enterprises. According to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4189,"featured_media":139347,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[430,6,332,13,185],"tags":[19142,19962,16813,22952,15827,1643,22951,20448,21728,712],"class_list":["post-139343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-insights","category-software","category-top-stories","category-uae","tag-agentic-ai","tag-ai-governance","tag-ai-regulation","tag-corporate-accountability","tag-cyber-resilience-2","tag-data-security","tag-emea-cybersecurity","tag-eu-ai-act","tag-shadow-ai","tag-veeam"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4189"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139343"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":139349,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139343\/revisions\/139349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/me\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}