The implementation of artificial intelligence raises the bar for governance and recovery planning, but some organisations have not evolved their disaster recovery approach to reflect this, according to a survey published this week.

The Keepit survey, of 300 IT decision-makers in Australia, France, Germany, New Zealand, the UK and the US, found that 94% were confident their disaster recovery plans cover agentic AI systems, but only 32% test those plans on a monthly basis.

This gap between confidence and validation raises concerns about organisations’ true ability to recover when incidents occur – particularly as AI-driven automation increases system interdependencies and accelerates the spread of errors.

The survey further revealed that 33% of IT and security leaders say they have only partial control over the use of agentic AI in their organisations, but 52% have doubts about whether their recovery plans cover agentic AI scenarios. Only 41% of respondents say they have significantly changed their approach to disaster recovery as a result of AI adoption.

Commenting on the findings, Kim Larsen, group chief information security officer at Keepit, said: “Organisations need to put more emphasis on creating long-term, structured and tested disaster recovery plans. This also means putting a spotlight on data governance and accountability, which are the foundations for any resilience plan. It all boils down to knowing who is in charge of recovery and which systems are restored first when multiple systems are affected. When decisions are delayed, recovery takes longer than necessary.”

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