Sopra Steria Next: Fewer Than 20% of AI Decisions Have a Named Owner

Key figures from the CIO Compass

The report, titled 'AI is nothing without control and purpose', was published on 21 October 2026. It starts from the observation that large organisations have spent a decade governing their data but have given little or no thought to governing decision-making. According to Sopra Steria Next, generative and agentic AI no longer simply makes recommendations: it prioritises, triggers and executes.

The report puts forward three figures:

• Fewer than 20% of AI-influenced or AI-executed decisions have an identified business owner, explicit rules and formal accountability.
• Fewer than 25% of AI-driven decisions in production can be traced and replayed end-to-end.
• An automated decision failure can affect 10 to 100 times more operations, customers or revenues than a traditional IT incident.

A wider definition of AI sovereignty

Sopra Steria Next says AI sovereignty is not just a matter of knowing where data is hosted and where models run. In its definition, it also covers the ability to demonstrate, at any moment, who controls, explains and arbitrates automated decisions. The company adds that vendor dependency has shifted from infrastructure to cognition, and that this dependency is harder to reverse.

To address this, the publication offers CIOs a nine-dimension framework for governing data as well as automated decisions and their consequences. It also calls on them to make explicit a five-layer 'sovereignty stack' covering data, models, platforms, APIs and decisions. For each layer, three questions apply: who operates it, who can replace it, and who is accountable.

Valérie Thiblet, Partner Data & AI at Sopra Steria Next, says: 'The new question we now have to ask concerns decisions that AI has already taken without anyone being accountable for them.' She adds: 'A system that cannot be stopped in real time is not governed: it is merely observed. And what cannot be governed cannot be industrialised.'

Breaking points for IT departments

The document identifies several weak spots for IT departments. The first is the rise of Shadow AI, which, according to the report, erodes traceability and cost control before leaders are even aware of it. The second is model governance, which is still treated as an optional layer.

The third concerns the AI Act. Sopra Steria Next says the main risk there will not be deliberate non-compliance but accidental non-compliance through lack of preparation.

What it means for CIOs

The report shifts the focus of AI governance from infrastructure and data location to accountability for outcomes. For CIOs, the practical message from Sopra Steria Next is to name an owner and set explicit rules for each automated decision, to make sure decisions can be traced and replayed, and to be able to stop systems in real time. The figures cited suggest that many organisations are not yet at that point, though they come from the publisher's own report and the press release does not detail the underlying methodology.