NTT DATA 2026: what the companies furthest ahead with AI prioritize in governance.
Of the companies furthest ahead with AI in NTT DATA’s survey, 55.9% govern AI centrally, against 33.3% of those furthest behind.
9 June 2026
senior executives surveyed across 15 industries
countries represented
of AI leaders follow a centralized AI governance model
NTT DATA, 2026 Global AI Report
In December 2025, NTT DATA published a survey of 2,567 senior executives across 15 industries and 35 countries, conducted in September and October 2025. It counts an organization as an AI leader if it has a well-defined or in-progress AI strategy, a “mature” or “evolved” level of AI maturity, and significantly higher profits from AI than its peers. Only 15% of participating organizations qualified.
59.4% of AI leaders named data privacy or sovereignty across countries as a top governance concern, against 49.6% of AI laggards, the organizations furthest behind. The report says AI leaders “localize or relocate AI infrastructure for private/sovereign AI.”
55.9% of AI leaders follow a centralized AI governance model, against 37.6% of other organizations and 33.3% of AI laggards. NTT DATA describes this as centralized oversight, “often under the Chief AI Officer or the CEO.”
Among the leaders, 78% have a dedicated Chief AI Officer and formal AI governance. NTT DATA writes that AI leaders have an AI steering committee with an executive sponsor and representation from legal and security.
What Mandate does
You write your rules once, and Mandate applies them to messages to AI before they leave and to each action an agent takes through a tool before it runs. Either can be refused, or held for someone you name to approve.
Every decision goes on a signed record that anyone can check on their own computer.
Sources
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NTT DATA: the 2026 Global AI Report announcement (December 2025)
Source for the survey: 2,567 senior executives across 35 countries and 15 industries, conducted in September and October 2025, with 15% qualifying as AI leaders, and for the quote on infrastructure.
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NTT DATA: 2026 Global AI Report, A Playbook for AI Leaders
Source for the 78% with a dedicated Chief AI Officer and formal AI governance, under Key Traits of AI Leaders.
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NTT DATA: AI leadership, the ultimate competitive advantage in 2026 and beyond
NTT DATA’s open article with the 59.4%, 49.6%, 55.9%, 37.6% and 33.3% figures and the definition of an AI leader.
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NTT DATA: How AI governance delivers compliance and trust (February 2026)
Source for the AI steering committee with an executive sponsor and representation from legal and security.
More reading notes
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CB Financial Services 2026: an SEC filing over customer data put into an AI app the bank had not approved
19 October 2026CB Financial Services told the SEC that customer names, Social Security numbers and dates of birth were handled with an AI application the bank had not authorized.
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EY 2026: 47% say their AI governance process was skipped for urgent deployments
18 October 202698% of the 202 US senior AI executives EY surveyed say their company has formal AI governance policies in place, and 47% say the process was skipped for urgent deployments.
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OWASP 2026: misuse of an AI agent’s identity and access is a top threat
9 June 2026The OWASP security project lists misuse of an agent’s identity and access among the ten highest-impact threats to AI agents, and recommends each agent get its own identity.
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University of Queensland and MIT 2026: which sectors are most exposed to AI risk
8 June 2026A panel of 272 experts judged information, finance and national security the sectors most exposed to AI risk, and the authors write that the standards and enforcement AI needs are still forming or missing.
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Schrems II and the CLOUD Act: which law reaches your data
18 May 2026Under the US CLOUD Act, a US court can order a provider under US law to hand over data it controls, wherever that data is stored.
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IBM 2026: 18% of Canadian organizations say they have systems to govern AI across everyday operations
8 May 2026In an IBM Institute for Business Value study, 18% of Canadian organizations said they have systems to coordinate and govern AI across everyday operations.
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United States v. Heppner: documents a defendant made with an AI tool, not at a lawyer’s direction, were not privileged
30 April 2026A US federal court found that documents a defendant made with an AI tool, not at a lawyer’s direction, were not privileged.
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