In my recent travels, speaking with security leaders across the globe, one theme keeps coming up: we're drowning in compliance requirements while struggling to demonstrate real security improvements. When you hear that the average US firm is spending between 1.3 and 3.3 percent of its total employee compensation costs on regulatory compliance (Cato Institute), and then learn that 60% of GRC users are still managing it all with spreadsheets (Coalfire Compliance Report 2023), you know something has to change.

That's why I'm excited to share a major new initiative from CSA that's been in the works for some time: The Compliance Automation Revolution. But before I dive into the details, let me share an observation that really drove home why we need this change.

The Breaking Point Is Here

During a recent meeting with one of our working groups, someone shared that their organization has to comply with 137 national data privacy laws - and that's before counting state, sector-specific, and regional requirements like GDPR. When they mapped all their IT compliance obligations, they found massive duplication of effort, yet gaps still somehow slipped through. I'm betting this sounds familiar to many of you.

The numbers tell the story. Studies from the Healthcare Financial Management Association show non-compliance costs are now three times higher than compliance investments, with organizations facing average data breach costs of $5.05 million per incident when they fall behind (IBM's Cost of a Data Breach Report 2023). Meanwhile, the global auditing services market has hit $226.6B in 2024 (Mordor Intelligence). We're spending more than ever, but are we really more secure?

A Practical Path Forward

At CSA, we believe in solving real-world problems with practical solutions. After extensive collaboration with industry leaders and our member community, we've identified three key pillars for transforming compliance:

1. Automation that scales with your business
2. Regulatory harmonization that eliminates redundant effort
3. Real-time information exchanges that keep everyone aligned

This isn't just another framework or set of requirements. We're building something fundamentally different - a broad-based coalition to transform how we approach compliance and assurance.

What We're Building Together

Let me be clear about what we're delivering:

• A continuous monitoring architecture that catches issues in real-time
• AI-powered regulatory analysis that makes sense of complex requirements
• Automated controls testing that eliminates manual overhead
• Standards that enable machine to machine compliance communications

But perhaps most importantly, we will perform rich, real-world data analysis to identify the security controls contributing to the most risk reduction (the list might be smaller than you think). We are learning from years of industry experience that more controls don't necessarily mean better security.

The Technology Foundation

The timing for this revolution couldn't be better. Organizations are projected to face exponential growth in data creation, reaching 572 zettabytes worldwide by 2030. We'll have 75 billion IoT devices by 2025, with the cloud market projected to hit $2.4T by 2030. Traditional compliance approaches simply won't scale with this growth.

That's why we're leveraging the latest in cloud and AI technologies to make this work. And yes, we're well aware of the irony that AI is both part of our solution and creating new compliance challenges - there are already 204 AI regulations, standards and frameworks to consider (Cloud Security Alliance AI Safety Initiative, 2024).

A Call to Action: Join the Revolution

I've been in this industry long enough to know that real transformation happens when we work together. The Compliance Automation Revolution isn't just a CSA initiative - it's our collective response to a challenge that affects everyone in our industry.

According to the 2023 Thomson Reuters Risk & Compliance Survey Report, the top three factors cited as obstacles to addressing compliance risks were a lack of knowledgeable personnel, inadequate resources, and poor company culture. We need to change this equation.

The time for incremental improvements has passed. Join us in building a future where compliance actually drives security improvements without breaking the bank - or our spirits.

We will be formally launching the Compliance Automation Revolution later in 2025. Right now, we are looking for the visionaries who wish to be founders of this important initiative. Reach out to learn how you can be part of the future of compliance. After all, the best revolutions are the ones we build together.

Jim Reavis
CEO, Cloud Security Alliance