Diligent expands Diligent One with agentic AI for continuous risk and audit oversight

Diligent has announced new agentic AI capabilities within Diligent One, its native AI platform for governance, risk and compliance, designed to help risk and audit teams move from periodic reporting towards more continuous oversight.

The update combines specialised AI agents with reporting capabilities that can turn live risk and controls data into board-ready insights. Diligent unveiled the capabilities at Gartner’s Enterprise Risk, Audit and Compliance Conference, positioning the technology around a shift from fragmented information and manual coordination towards faster, more connected GRC workflows.

The announcement also comes as Australian boards and business leaders face increasing pressure to understand emerging risks earlier, improve visibility across their organisations and make decisions faster while maintaining governance and accountability.

Agentic AI for Risk and Audit Work

At the centre of the update is an orchestration agent that gives GRC professionals a natural-language interface for coordinating risk and audit work.

Rather than simply answering questions, the agent can interpret what a user needs and route the work to specialised agents responsible for different parts of the GRC workflow. The agents operate using connected data within Diligent One, providing context across risks, controls, evidence, obligations and related activities.

For risk teams, the specialised agent can monitor risk data, clean records, coordinate assessments, follow up on overdue actions, escalate issues and surface emerging risks.

For internal audit teams, the capabilities can support audit planning and execution by identifying relevant risks, mapping them to audit objectives, linking existing controls and assisting with evidence collection, testing and findings development.

From Periodic Reporting to Continuous Oversight

The broader objective is to move GRC teams away from point-in-time assessments and reporting towards more continuous management.

Scott Bridgen, General Manager, Risk & Audit at Diligent, said risk and audit teams are increasingly expected to provide insight that helps businesses understand what is changing and respond accordingly.

Diligent's platform is designed to support this shift by connecting risk and audit information so that changes can be identified and workflows can be triggered without relying entirely on manual follow-up.

The company says its risk and audit agents can handle activities such as evidence requests, follow-ups, control testing and reporting while keeping judgement calls, reviews and approvals with the relevant professionals.

Turning Live GRC Data Into Board-Ready Insights

Diligent is also introducing AI reporting capabilities that can turn live risk and controls data into reports and insights on demand.

Using conversational prompts or templates, teams can surface key findings and generate secure, source-cited reports. The capability is intended to reduce the manual work involved in bringing together data, insights and presentations for executive and board audiences.

For boards, the significance extends beyond faster report preparation. Connecting live GRC information with reporting can give leadership teams a more current view of changing risks and the actions being taken in response.

A Connected Intelligence Layer for GRC

Underpinning the new capabilities is Diligent's GRC brain, a connected intelligence layer that links regulations, obligations, policies, controls, risks, evidence and actions.

The company says this connected context gives its agents the domain knowledge needed to reason across relationships rather than treating individual documents or data points in isolation.

That allows the agents to provide more contextualised recommendations and explain the rationale behind them, with the aim of helping GRC professionals prioritise work, identify potential gaps and respond more efficiently to emerging risks. Diligent says the GRC brain will become available in select Diligent solutions in October.

Keeping Human Judgement at the Centre

For Australian organisations, the introduction of agentic AI into risk and audit workflows also raises an important question around accountability.

Andrew Amos, Vice President, APAC at Diligent, said the technology should not be viewed as transferring responsibility to AI. Instead, he positioned agentic AI as a way to help teams make faster, better-informed decisions while maintaining human judgement, clear accountability and visibility into how recommendations are reached.

That principle is reflected in Diligent's broader approach to agentic GRC. The company says consequential actions can be escalated for human sign-off, with actions and recommendations maintained in a traceable workflow.

The distinction is particularly relevant as AI moves from assisting with information retrieval to participating in operational workflows. For risk and audit teams, automation can reduce administrative effort, but governance still depends on knowing who reviewed an action, why it was taken and where responsibility ultimately sits.

What Agentic GRC Could Mean for Australian Boards

The Australian market provides a useful lens for the development of these capabilities. As risk conditions change faster and boards seek more timely visibility, GRC teams are being asked to provide more than retrospective reporting.

Diligent's latest capabilities are aimed at connecting monitoring, workflow execution and reporting so that information can move more quickly from detection to action.

For boards and senior risk leaders, the potential shift is from receiving periodic snapshots of risk towards having a more continuously updated view of emerging issues, underlying evidence and actions underway.

The technology does not remove the need for professional judgement. Instead, Diligent is positioning agentic AI as a way to reduce the operational work surrounding GRC so that practitioners can spend more time on interpretation, oversight and decision-making.

About Diligent

Diligent is a governance, risk and compliance technology company focused on helping organisations manage risk, governance and compliance through its Diligent One Platform. The company says its platform supports more than 1 million users and 700,000 board members, providing practitioners, executives and boards with a consolidated view of their GRC activities.