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Who Owns AI Risk at Work? PwC Survey Reports No Clear Consensus

By Freedom251 Team · · 3 min read

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There is no single agreed owner for agentic AI security at work. Secondary coverage of PwC’s Digital Trust Insights 2027 reports that respondents most often assigned responsibility to technology leaders (29%) or a dedicated AI leader or function (26%), with fewer naming cybersecurity leaders (17%). The figures concern agentic AI security—not every kind of AI risk—and the original PwC report was not available to verify the survey question or methodology.

What the reported survey figures say

Secondary coverage attributes the following responses to PwC’s Digital Trust Insights 2027, a survey described as including roughly 4,000 business and technology leaders across 71 countries:

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Role or response Reported share
CIO, CTO, or similar technology role 29%
Dedicated AI leader or AI function 26%
CISO or cybersecurity team 17%
Responsibility unclear 11%

These are figures attributed to the survey by secondary coverage; the primary PwC report, exact question wording, field dates, and respondent breakdown were not available to confirm. The results indicate a split rather than a clear winner, and they should not be read as a ranking of who owns legal, privacy, safety, employment, or model-performance risks across all AI use.

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Why the role depends on the risk

Technology leaders typically have direct influence over system design, integration, deployment, and operations. A dedicated AI function can coordinate standards and expertise across use cases. Security teams bring threat analysis, incident response, and independent challenge. Those responsibilities overlap, but none alone guarantees authority to set business risk tolerance, stop a deployment, or provide independent assurance.

PwC’s governance guidance describes three lines of responsibility rather than one universal executive owner: first-line teams build and operate systems responsibly; second-line teams review and govern; third-line functions provide assurance and audit. PwC says, “Clear roles and tight hand-offs are now essential to scale safely and confidently as AI adoption accelerates.” See PwC’s Responsible AI material.

How to assign accountability in practice

Shared work is compatible with clear accountability. For each AI system or use case, name a decision-maker who can accept, mitigate, or escalate risk, then specify who builds it, who challenges its controls, and who independently checks the result.

  • Design and deployment: Assign a first-line product, engineering, data, or AI owner responsible for controls in the system and its operating context.
  • Review and challenge: Give risk, security, privacy, legal, or compliance functions defined review duties and a route to raise unresolved concerns.
  • Risk acceptance and escalation: Identify the business authority that can approve residual risk or pause deployment; do not leave that decision implicit in a technical team’s remit.
  • Monitoring and assurance: Set operational monitoring and incident ownership, while keeping independent audit or assurance distinct from the teams whose work is being checked.
  • Handoffs: Record how a system moves from development to approval, production monitoring, incident response, and periodic review.

The right allocation depends on who controls the relevant decisions, who can challenge them independently, and who can detect and respond when controls fail. PwC’s three-lines model supports that division of work; it does not mandate one organizational chart.

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How the other PwC figures fit—and do not fit

Separate PwC surveys offer context, but they measure different populations and questions:

Finding What it measures Important distinction
56% said first-line IT, engineering, data, and AI teams lead Responsible AI efforts PwC’s 2025 US Responsible AI Survey; 310 US business leaders surveyed September 26–October 2, 2025. See PwC’s survey page. A US Responsible AI leadership question, not the global agentic-security ownership result.
51% of companies had a formalized approach to AI risk PwC’s 29th Global CEO Survey, reported in 2026. See PwC’s CEO survey material. A separate measure of formal risk processes, not a finding about which executive owns risk.
58% reported improved ROI and organizational efficiency; 55% reported enhanced customer experience and innovation Respondents’ reported benefits in PwC’s 2025 US Responsible AI Survey. See PwC’s survey page. Self-reported benefits, not evidence that governance caused those outcomes.

PwC argues that formal risk processes can help companies apply AI across more functions and processes. That is PwC’s interpretation of the relationship, not proof that governance alone causes broader adoption.

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AI governanceAI securitybusiness technologyPwCresponsible AI

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