Paige Bartley

Research — April 23, 2026 RSAC Conference 2026: Confronting both the promise and threat of agentic AI By Paige Bartley, Garrett Bekker, Justin Lam, Daniel Kennedy, Mark Ehr, and Scott Crawford The 2026 RSAC Conference saw its highest-ever attendance, with nearly 44,000 participants, 700 speakers and 600 exhibitors.

Doom and gloom. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. The “stick” versus the “carrot”. What do these concepts have in common? They have often provided the primary motivation for organizations’ data governance and security strategies. For the enterprise, this mindset has perpetuated the idea that data governance, data security and data privacy are reactive cost centers existing due to externally imposed requirements or mandates.

Data privacy and protection practices within enterprises still often lack firm, dedicated leadership and responsibility despite the fact that businesses today tend to collect and maintain more sensitive/personal data than ever before. According to 451 Research's Voice of the Enterprise: Data & Analytics, Data Governance & Privacy 2022 survey, only 61.6% of respondents reported that their organization has a chief privacy officer.