What is the 30% GRC Tax?

The 30% GRC Tax is the invisible burden on engineering and compliance teams—the hours spent correcting, verifying, and manually fixing compliance automation tools that were supposed to save time. It includes false-positive investigation, duplicate evidence mapping, and consultant dependency.

What is Compliance Intelligence vs Checklist Automation?

Checklist Automation operates on static, binary rules that flag deviations without understanding business context, resulting in 30-40% false-positive rates. Compliance Intelligence uses a Context Engine to validate technical configurations against business intent, reducing false positives to less than 5%.

How does Evidence Intelligence reduce duplicate compliance work?

Evidence Intelligence uses a Unified Control Library (UCL) where AI recognizes the semantic value of evidence. Instead of manually tagging evidence to each framework, you provide it once and the AI ensures compliance across every relevant global framework—resulting in 60-80% reduction in duplicate work.

What is AskNorman and how does it help with compliance?

AskNorman is an AI agent trained on your specific technical architecture and regulatory requirements. Unlike basic chatbots, it doesn't just identify compliance gaps—it provides exact remediation steps tailored to your infrastructure, closing the expertise gap without expensive consultants.

The 30% Tax of Legacy GRC

The Automation Promise vs. The Reality of 2026

When the first wave of compliance automation platforms hit the market, the promise was revolutionary: "Connect your cloud, toggle some switches, and become compliant automatically."

But as we move through 2026, organizations are discovering a hidden cost. We call it the 30% GRC Tax. This is the invisible burden on your engineering and compliance teams—the hours spent correcting, verifying, and manually "fixing" the very tools that were supposed to save them time.

The problem? Most platforms today are built on Checklist Automation, not Compliance Intelligence.

1. The High Cost of "Dumb" Alerts

First-generation GRC tools operate on static, binary rules. They flag deviations without understanding the business logic behind them. The result is a flood of noise. Industry data shows that legacy tools suffer from a false-positive rate between 30% and 40%.

Every false alert forces a high-paid engineer to stop building and start investigating.

2. The "Evidence Chase" and the Mapping Trap

In the era of "Checklist Automation," you are still effectively a digital librarian. You collect screenshots, export logs, and manually tag them to specific controls. If you want to scale—moving from SOC 2 to NIS2 or the EU AI Act—the nightmare doubles because these tools don't understand that one piece of evidence can satisfy multiple requirements.

Basenorm introduces Evidence Intelligence. Using our Unified Control Library (UCL), our AI recognizes the semantic value of your evidence.

3. AskNorman: Closing the Expertise Gap

Legacy GRC platforms provide data, but they don't provide answers. When an auditor asks a complex question or a control fails, you are often left digging through documentation or hiring expensive consultants to bridge the gap.

With AskNorman, Basenorm has integrated an auditor directly into your workflow. AskNorman isn't a basic chatbot; it's an AI agent trained on your specific technical architecture and regulatory requirements. It doesn't just identify a gap—it provides the exact remediation steps tailored to your infrastructure.

Conclusion: Efficiency is the New Compliance

In a world of rapidly evolving regulations like DORA and the EU AI Act, you can no longer afford to pay the "30% Tax" on manual labor and false positives.

Compliance should be an automated byproduct of your technical excellence, not a constant drain on your resources. Basenorm was built to move beyond the checklist. We don't just automate compliance; we provide the intelligence to master it.

Stop paying the Legacy Tax. Start scaling with Intelligence.