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The 2026 Compliance Program Self-Assessment

The Compliance Program Self-Assessment

Are you looking to assess your E&C program’s overall effectiveness when it comes to things like structure, oversight, monitoring, training, and more?

Introducing the 2026 Compliance Program Self-Assessment by Ethisphere. Built from our industry-leading Ethics Quotient® (EQ) questionnaire and benchmarking from this year’s list of World’s Most Ethical Companies® honorees, this 20-question program assessment provides compliance leaders a unique glimpse into the overall effectiveness of their work to date, for free and within minutes!

Simply answer questions about different aspects of your program and organization and receive an overall program score, list of strengths and opportunities for improvement, plus analysis and additional resources from the industry’s leading experts and largest benchmarking dataset.

The demands for a program’s continued evolution and proactive efforts to improve are no longer reserved for the largest organizations in the most risk-heavy industries, they’re table stakes across the board in today’s day and age. Complete the 2026 Compliance Program Self-Assessment today to plot a course for your program’s improvement!

Begin Compliance Program Self-Assessment

Ethicast: The Surprising Data Around How Ethics & Compliance Programs Use AI

Ethicast

The Surprising Data Around How Ethics & Compliance Programs Use AI

Ethisphere and Ethena partnered to publish a report on the use of AI and its adoption by ethics and compliance teams. The report shares results from a survey of 134 organizations representing senior E&C leaders around how and where they are adopting AI into their programs. In this Ethicast episode, Ethisphere Senior Culture Analyst, Katie Kruger, discusses the role she played interrogating the survey data that informs the report and shares a few exclusive findings that the report does not include. 

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Ethicast: How Phillips 66 Improved Its E&C Program with “Metrics That Matter”

Ethicast

How Phillips 66 Improved Its E&C Program with “Metrics That Matter”

Phillips 66, a public, multinational company in the heavily regulated energy industry, has significant corporate compliance obligations to uphold. This makes measuring and reporting program efficiency absolutely crucial to the program’s success. And under the “Metrics That Matter” initiative, Kristin Andrade, Manager, Office of Ethics, and Tom Lucek, Senior Advisor, Operations, Data Reporting, and Technology, share how the Global Ethics & Compliance team has created a robust data ecosystem that empowers and advances its program.

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Ethicast Reacts: Lessons from KPMG Australia’s Speak-Up Scandal 

Ethicast

Ethicast Reacts: Lessons from KPMG Australia’s Speak-Up Scandal

In this special episode, Ethisphere Chief Strategy Officer, Erica Salmon Byrne dives into the ongoing whistleblower scandal that has enveloped KPMG Australia and unpacks what organizations can take from this to improve their speak-up culture, anti-retaliation measures, investigations processes, executive accountability, and organizational justice. 

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Ethicast: 2027 World’s Most Ethical Companies® Application Best Practices 

Ethicast

2027 World’s Most Ethical Companies® Application Best Practices

In this episode, Ethisphere Chief Strategy Officer, Erica Salmon Byrne, shares her insights on some best practices to keep in mind when applying for the 2027 World’s Most Ethical Companies® recognition. Including:  

  • How should applicants budget their time and people-hours for this task  
  • Properly documenting your application  
  • How to connect with allied functions across the enterprise to get crucial details  
  • Advice for first-time applicants, especially with smaller or younger E&C programs  
  • What Ethisphere does – and doesn’t – want to see from this year’s applicants 

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AI Adoption in Ethics & Compliance: 2026 Report

Free research report AI in Ethics & Compliance · 2026

The State of AI Adoption in Ethics & Compliance

67% of organizations have reached broad or advanced AI adoption. Only 22% of the E&C functions governing them have. New benchmark research from Ethisphere and Ethena explains the 45.5-point gap — and how to close it.

  • Four data-backed patterns behind the adoption gap — centralization, team size, and organizational maturity
  • A sequenced 12-month playbook — starting with the trust barriers E&C names first: accuracy risk and data exposure
  • A risk-tiered human-review framework for the agentic AI wave
  • An interactive benchmark tool — see where your program stands on every question the survey asked
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Based on a June 2026 survey of 134 unique organizations, each represented by an E&C team leader · 95% inside the E&C function, 55% Chief- or VP-level · 89% from $1B+ organizations

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What the research found

E&C wrote the rules for enterprise AI. It was never resourced to follow them.

Ethics and compliance teams spent two years approving tools, drafting guardrails, and building AI governance for everyone else. Asked what holds their own adoption back, they name the very risks they govern — accuracy and hallucination risk, data exposure — ahead of every resourcing barrier. The report names this the Cobbler’s Children problem, and maps the way out.

45.5 pts
gap between enterprise and E&C AI adoption
84%
of E&C teams have no dedicated AI budget
4.5%
measure AI’s impact with defined metrics
53%
cite accuracy and hallucination risk as the top barrier
Inside the report

Four patterns explain the gap. One playbook closes it.

Every finding is built from the full survey data — and every chart in the online report drills down by industry.

Pattern one
The Centralization Paradox
The most common program structure produces the lowest AI adoption of any model measured.
Pattern two
The Large-Team Ceiling
100+ person teams hit integration friction at more than twice the overall rate — and none measure AI impact.
Pattern three
The Mid-Size Team Anomaly
Teams of 16–30 sit inside the fastest-moving organizations — yet run AI with no dedicated budget line and no metrics.
Pattern four
The Advanced-Org Gap
Even inside the most AI-mature organizations, only 14% of E&C functions have kept pace.
Get the report
Included with the report

Don’t just read the data. Benchmark against it.

Answer the eleven questions the survey asked and get a customized dashboard for your program — filtered to your industry, revenue band, and team size — plus three board-ready slides that build themselves as you go.

Get the report & benchmark
Every chart drills down to your peer set
Your position marked on every benchmark
Three board-ready slides, generated for you
“E&C is well positioned to close this gap. With 63% of leaders reporting a formal role in enterprise AI governance, few teams understand the guardrails, the risk tolerance, or the governance model better than one that helped write them.”
From the report · conclusion

Frequently asked questions

E&C functions wrote the guardrails that let the rest of the enterprise adopt AI — approving tools, drafting policy, building governance — but were never resourced to adopt AI themselves. In this survey, 67% of organizations report broad or advanced AI adoption while only 22% of E&C functions do: a 45.5-point gap.

Trust in the technology, not resistance to it. Accuracy or hallucination risk (53%) and confidentiality or data-exposure concerns (48%) top the list — ahead of every resourcing barrier, including budget (24%). Leadership resistance was cited by just 1.5% of respondents.

Ethisphere partnered with Ethena to survey ethics and compliance leaders at 134 unique organizations in June 2026 — one senior E&C leader per organization. 89% represent organizations with more than $1 billion in annual revenue, spanning manufacturing, professional services, insurance, technology, healthcare, and more.

The full research report — four data-backed patterns, a barriers and guardrails analysis, and a sequenced 12-month playbook — plus an interactive benchmark tool that marks your program’s position against all eleven survey questions, filtered to your industry, revenue band, and team size, and generates three board-ready slides.

Yes. Fill out the short form and you get instant access to read online or download, at no cost.

The enterprise isn’t waiting.
Neither should E&C.

Get the data, the four patterns, and the 12-month playbook — free.

Download the report
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