The top emerging risks have shifted in the third quarter of 2025, according to enterprise risk leaders, as global socioeconomic tides continue to churn and the AI boom looms.

The low-growth economic environment, caused by tariff-driven trade tensions and other conditions, moved into the top rank of emerging risks for the third quarter of 2025, according to a survey by Gartner, Inc.

The 3Q25 report, based on a survey of 184 senior risk and assurance executives, also revealed mounting concern around artificial intelligence (AI).

AI-related information governance-driven risks, moved up in rank, from the fourth most cited spot in 2Q25 to the second rank in 3Q25, and shadow AI moved from the fifth ranked spot to the third spot, as organizations face challenges in effectively monitoring its use.

“The top five emerging risks in the third quarter highlight a continuum of concern related to two broad themes for enterprises that emerged in the second quarter: A volatile low-growth macroeconomic environment, and AI as the disruptive technology that can increase compliance risks quickly as it is adopted by the mainstream,” said Gamika Takkar, Director, Research, in the Gartner Risk & Audit Practice.

The top risks are as follows:

1. Low-growth economic environment: The risk that global trade tensions, increased volatility in financial markets, high unemployment and inflation continue to lead a sustained loss of investor and consumer confidence, resulting in a prolonged low-growth economic environment.
2. Information governance-driven AI risks: Risks related to weak information governance policies or practices that lead to unintended data feeding AI models, causing inaccurate results, legal or policy breaches and privacy failures.
3. Shadow AI: The risk that employees use unauthorised AI tools and applications outside f their organisation’s approved framework, which can lead to data breaches, compliance issues, inconsistencies or reputational damage.
4. Increased Extreme Weather Frequency and Severity: The risks of extreme weather (including extreme temperatures) and its effects on humans and technology including risks to operational capabilities, supply chains, critical infrastructure and consumer behaviour.
5. Deglobalisation: The risk that protectionist federal policy changes and a rise in militarism impacts international trade and cooperation, realigning global supply chains, increasing costs of doing business and heightening geopolitical tensions.

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• Report: Cybersecurity Tops Tariffs as Q1 Priority for Supply Chains

Navigating Complex Emerging Risks Signals

The universe of risks continues to diversify. As emerging risks grow more complex, 72% of ERM leaders say taking timely action is highly important. However, only 15% feel confident in determining what information to spotlight.

“Amid varying emerging risk signals, heads of ERM should prioritise tactics to identify emerging risks that require immediate stakeholder attention for timely response,” said Takkar.

To effectively recognise risks that need immediate attention, risk leaders should take these three steps to fully evaluate the impact and prioritize response:

• Set up impact thresholds using diverse parameters. Assess diverse impact parameters, including regulatory, reputational and ESG dimensions to shortlist high-priority emerging risks.
• Link emerging risks with strategic priorities. Analyse how emerging risks impact strategic priorities to facilitate targeted action steps that prevent must-avoid outcomes (MAOs).
• Use response time with impact and velocity. Factor in organisational response time along with impact and velocity to prioritise emerging risks.

Enterprise risk leaders can also set impact threshold using a range of parameters to consider. These include issues like regulatory impact, which may cause issues that lead to regulatory shutdowns or licensing issues and legal impact, which could cause precedent-setting legal action.

Reputational and customer impact are also important considerations as they could risk irreversible damage and trust, causing customer attrition.

“Enabling ERM leaders to navigate the noise and identify risks that require timely action is top of mind for any enterprise,” said Takkar.

“To make sense of conflicting signals, leaders must be cognizant of risk prioritisation tactics and ensure timely stakeholder to avoid strategic derailment.”