By any measure, 2026 is the year risk stops arriving in tidy lanes. Geopolitics, cyber, supply chains, disinformation, and AI governance are fusing into a single operating picture — and boards want answers in real time, not in quarterly memos. The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2026 [1] captures the mood: geoeconomic confrontation tops the near‑term risk list, with half of surveyed leaders expecting a “turbulent or stormy” two‑year outlook as economic tools (tariffs, sanctions, export controls) are weaponized and spill into operations and supplier networks.
Against that backdrop, leaders in risk intelligence will be judged on four capabilities:
- Unification
- Automation
- Governance
- Actionability
Unify fractured risk domains
“Modern adversaries do not operate in a single domain,” [2] and don’t respect org charts.” This is according to Benji Hutchinson, CEO, Babel Street, who was recently recognized as a top industry executive to watch by Washington Exec. That means identity threats, vendor exposure, and open‑source signals must be fused into a single view so teams can see connections across people, suppliers, and events — not chase signals across siloed tools.
Supply chain experts are reaching the same conclusion. Trend maps from ASCM [3] and KPMG [4] emphasize network‑wide visibility, traceability, and “Total Value” thinking that integrates operations, finance, procurement, and customer impact — a shift from isolated resilience projects to enterprise orchestration.
Leadership takeaway — Treat risk as a graph, not a list. Build data interoperability so fraud, sanctions, cyber, ESG, and third‑party signals resolve to common entities (people, companies, assets) and common workflows. Moody’s 2026 outlook [5] explicitly calls for “an orchestrated, unified view of risk” across fraud, sanctions, beneficial ownership, and more.
Operationalize (agentic) AI — with guardrails
In 2026, AI moves from pilots to production, and with it comes both scale and scrutiny. Forrester predicts agentic AI will power workflows and cause at least one public breach where autonomous agents act without sufficient controls — a reminder that AI must be secured like any critical system. [6]
Hutchinson says, “Babel Street is at the forefront of operationalizing agentic AI to detect risk and run the full intelligence workflow end to end. These agents integrate directly into mission-critical systems so insights drive action...” [7] all while ensuring humans remain in control.
Leadership takeaway — Deploy AI where it compresses time‑to‑insight (multilingual OSINT triage, sub‑tier supplier discovery, sanctions screening, anomaly detection), but pair it with model provenance, auditable decision logs, and “minimum viable security” for agents. WEF’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2026 [8] shows executives’ concerns shifting from attacker AI to GenAI‑linked data leaks — underscoring the need for strong data loss prevention strategies.
Make governance a feature, not an afterthought
From Davos to boardrooms, 2026 is the year AI governance and risk controls become table stakes. The OECD and global policy community are pushing toward auditable risk‑management frameworks [9] for advanced AI, while governance analysts warn that regulation is accelerating and boards will institutionalize AI oversight as a core competency. [10]
Leadership takeaway — Build explainability, lineage, and human‑in‑the‑loop into every model that touches investigations, due diligence, or critical operations. Treat prompts, agent plans, and output routes as evidence artifacts your auditors will eventually review. Legal and investigations practices are already flagging AI‑tool defensibility and board oversight records as enforcement priorities. [11]
Push intelligence into the last mile of action
Insights stuck in dashboards are a 2020 problem. Leaders need risk signals to trigger decisions inside procurement, case management, insider‑risk, and field operations — not just alert analysts. Babel Street is recognized for advancing precisely this shift: moving from manual, human‑assembled analysis toward machine‑orchestrated tradecraft that cross‑correlates multilingual data and pushes outcomes directly into mission workflows.
In 2026, risk‑intelligence leaders will be judged less on how much data they collect and more on how quickly that data changes a decision. By delivering mission-grade intelligence that exposes hidden connections across people, suppliers and threats, the Babel Street Risk Intelligence Platform enables national security organizations and defense contractors to move from reactive defense to predictive protection.
Hutchinson concludes, “At Babel Street, our goal is to help risk-intelligence leaders thrive in 2026 and beyond, with solutions that operationalize AI, bolster it with mission-grade data, and yield enhanced security in an uncertain world.”
Learn more about Babel Street’s approach in this “Top Industry Execs to Watch” profile of Benji Hutchinson, Babel Street CEO.
End Notes
[1] World Economic Forum, “Global Risks Report 2026,” Jan 14, 2026, https://www.weforum.org/publications/global-risks-report-2026/in-full/global-risks-report-2026-key-findings/
[2] Washington Exec, “Top Industry Execs to Watch in 2026,” Jan 27, 2026, https://washingtonexec.com/2026/01/top-industry-execs-to-watch-in-2026/3/
[3] Association for Supply Chain Management, “Top 10 Supply Chain Trends in 2026,” Retrieved Jan 2026 https://www.ascm.org/globalassets/ascm_website_assets/docs/top10trends2026.pdf
[4] KPMG, “Key trends impacting supply chains in 2026,” Retrieved Jan 2026, https://kpmg.com/xx/en/our-insights/operations/supply-chain-trends-2026.html
[5] Moody’s, “The BIG compliance and third-party risk management blog of the year,” Dec 17, 2025, https://www.moodys.com/web/en/us/kyc/resources/insights/the-big-compliance-and-tprm-blog-of-the-year.html
[6] Harrington, Paddy, Senior Analyst, Forrester, “Predictions 2026: Cybersecurity And Risk Leaders Grapple With New Tech And Geopolitical Threats,” Oct 1, 2025 https://www.forrester.com/blogs/predictions-2026-cybersecurity-and-risk
[7] op. cit. Washington Exec
[8] World Economic Forum, “Cyber risk in 2026: What executives must know about AI, fraud, geopolitics and more,” Jan 12, 2026 https://www.weforum.org/stories/2026/01/geopolitics-ai-fraud-global-cyber-cybersecurity-2026/
[9] Proceedings of OECD Summit, “Shaping the Future of AI Governance: Standards, Risk Management, and Responsible Practices,” Feb 11, 2025 https://oecd.ai/en/actionsummit
[10] Bannerman, Natalie, Governance Intelligence, “How AI will redefine compliance, risk and governance in 2026,” Jan 5, 2026 https://www.governance-intelligence.com/regulatory-compliance/how-ai-will-redefine-compliance-risk-and-governance-2026
[11] A&O Shearman, “In a nutshell: Key white-collar crime and investigations challenges for in-house counsel in 2026,” Jan 27, 2026 https://www.aoshearman.com/en/insights/cross-border-white-collar-crime-and-investigations-review-2026/in-a-nutshell-key-white-collar-crime-and-investigations-challenges-for-in-house-counsel-in-2026