Research

Generative AI Is a Top Emerging Risk for Enterprises, Gartner Says

• By David Nagel
• 08/11/23

Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google Bard have cracked the top-10 list of emerging risks for enterprises, according to a new report by research firm Gartner.

The report polled 249 senior risk executives to develop a list of the top-20 emerging risks for enterprises.

"Generative AI was the second most-frequently named risk in our second quarter survey, appearing in the top 10 for the first time," said Ran Xu, director, research, in the Gartner Risk & Audit Practice, in a prepared statement. "This reflects both the rapid growth of public awareness and usage of generative AI tools, as well as the breadth of potential use cases, and therefore potential risks, that these tools engender."

Gartner said that among the key risks for generative AI are:

• Data privacy, since generative AI tools share information with third parties;

• Information security, as hackers look for ways to "subvert it for their own ends," according to Xu; and

• Intellectual property, as sensitive, copyrighted, or confidential information can be leaked through these tools.

The top 5 emerging risks in the latest report included:

1. Third-party viability, cited by 67% of respondents;

2. Mass availability of generative AI, cited by 66%;

3. Financial planning uncertainty (62%);

4. Cloud concentration risk (62%); and

5. China trade tensions (56%).

The full report is available to Gartner clients here.