Rapid technological advances are transforming how organisations operate, from day‑to‑day processes to strategic decision‑making. At the same time, a developing web of digital regulation is reshaping what is possible, adding complexity and directly influencing how technologies can be deployed in practice. Against this backdrop, boards must navigate a landscape where innovation, regulation and risk are tightly intertwined.
Our global team examines three key aspects of the technological revolution impacting boards and GCs in 2026.
01| Agentic AI: Amplifying capability without compromising control
The focus on AI is rapidly shifting from content generation to automation. This evolution from "AI as tool" to "AI as actor" fundamentally blurs lines of accountability and raises material legal, regulatory, and operational risks.
With agents already being embedded into core business functions and enterprise systems to orchestrate complex workflows, boards must prioritise understanding what these systems can do, how they behave and learn, and critically, how they might fail. This is particularly important where actions carry financial, operational, or customer impact.
Agentic AI technology raises fundamental questions about decision-making, accountability, and the effectiveness of internal controls and boards must treat it not only as a future commercial opportunity, but as a present source of operational, legal, regulatory, and reputational exposure
02| Cyber resilience in an era of escalating threats
Cyber‑attacks have become an almost inevitable part of modern business risk, reshaping the environment in which boards must make decisions. Alongside rising geopolitical and ransomware‑driven threats, regulators are hardening expectations of board‑level responsibility through regimes such as NIS II and DORA, while some governments, including the UK, are considering restrictions or bans on ransomware payments in certain sectors.
As a result, boards must treat cyber risk as a core governance issue and ensure their oversight, decision‑making frameworks and preparedness keep pace with a rapidly evolving regulatory and threat landscape. When an attack occurs, boards face acute, and often unscriptable, decisions- particularly whether to pay a ransom - balancing business continuity and data protection against legal, ethical and regulatory constraints that may soon tighten further.
Regulation can drive better investment, testing and accountability, but it will not deter determined attackers; post-incident scrutiny will therefore focus on governance quality, tone from the top, and evidence of effective challenge and preparedness. Cyber incidents are now a corporate “rite of passage”, and boards will be judged less on prevention than on resilience, response and demonstrable oversight.
03| Stablecoins: opportunities, risks and the board agenda
Stablecoins, digital tokens pegged to traditional currencies or assets, are attracting growing interest from businesses and individuals seeking cheaper and faster payments.
For some organisations, stablecoins may offer targeted benefits to payments pain in areas such as cross-border payments, foreign exchange management and intragroup liquidity. However, they also present significant legal, regulatory and operational risks.
Different stabilisation models shape legal rights, regulatory treatment and outcomes in insolvency. Boards should ground any exploration of stablecoins in a clear understanding of counterparty risk, regulatory expectations and reputational implications, ensuring that adoption does not move ahead of the its risk appetite or controls.
Read more on what boards and GCs need to know
In the fast-moving landscape impacting large corporates in 2026, boards and GCs face an increasingly complex set of challenges and opportunities that demand both agility and strong governance foundations.
Our Issues for Boards, General Counsel and Company Secretaries 2026 offers a concise, practical guide to the most pressing issues, from antitrust enforcement to employment law reforms and the impact of emerging technologies, equipping boards with the key steps needed to manage risk and seize opportunity in an uncertain world.
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