The Cloud Security Alliance (CSA) announced the launch of the Compliance Automation Revolution (CAR), a new initiative aimed at tackling the mounting challenges organizations face in meeting data security and privacy regulations.
The CAR initiative — developed in collaboration with leading industry partners including Google, Oracle, Anecdotes, Coalfire, Deloitte Italy, Salesforce, Schellman, and Vanta — seeks to deliver practical solutions to real-world compliance problems.
With organizations struggling to comply with an expanding array of regulations — fueled in part by the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the rapid proliferation of data and technology — traditional compliance efforts have become increasingly costly and less effective. The CSA, recognized as the world’s leading organization for defining cloud security standards, certifications, and best practices, established CAR to drive more efficient, scalable approaches to managing compliance demands.
CAR seeks to radically improve the quality of compliance, while decreasing risks and costs through automation that scales with the business, regulatory harmonization that eliminates redundant effort, and real-time information exchanges that keep businesses and regulators aligned. By leveraging compliance efforts, CAR will improve organizations' assurance posture and increase the overall level of trust within the ecosystem.
“With 16 years of thought leadership, cutting-edge innovation, and global expertise, CSA is uniquely positioned to lead the Compliance Automation Revolution. Through initiatives like the globally recognized Security, Trust, Assurance and Risk (STAR) program and vendor-neutral research, we’ve consistently prioritized the industry’s evolving needs. Now, with the launch of CAR, we’re shaping a future where compliance not only enhances security but does so efficiently — eliminating unnecessary costs and redundant efforts,” said Jim Reavis, CEO and co-founder, Cloud Security Alliance.
Backed by CSA’s community of industry experts and with support from leading policymakers and regulators, CAR is fundamentally transforming how organizations approach compliance, security governance, assurance, and, ultimately, trust. The initiative will focus on four key action areas:
- Automating evidence collection and sharing — Developing methods and tools to automatically gather compliance evidence and share them in a standardized machine-readable format.
- Shifting compliance left — Embedding compliance checks early in development as part of system design and CI/CD pipelines.
- Harmonizing regulatory frameworks — Mapping and aligning frameworks into a common, reusable set of controls.
- Driving risk quantification — Developing metrics and models to quantify security and compliance risk in objective terms, including defining standardized metrics for control effectiveness and assurance levels.
Industry leaders backing the CAR emphasized the urgent need to modernize compliance efforts in the face of rising regulatory complexity and cybersecurity threats.
Representatives from Google Cloud, Oracle, Anecdotes, Coalfire, Deloitte, Salesforce, Schellman, and Vanta described CAR as a collaborative effort to shift compliance from a costly, reactive process to a more scalable, automated, and proactive strategy. They highlighted automation, continuous monitoring, and "compliance-as-code" as key components to reduce audit fatigue, minimize operational risks, and better align compliance with security and innovation initiatives. Supporters also pointed to CAR’s potential to streamline processes, enable business growth, and foster stronger trust in cloud and AI-driven environments.
“Adhering to compliance is often viewed as a costly, point-in-time snapshot that lags behind the pace of innovation. CAR represents a vital industry collaboration to change that paradigm,” said Archana Ramamoorthy, senior director, Regulated and Trusted Cloud, Google Cloud, CAR Founding Member. “By embracing automation, harmonization, and ‘compliance-as-code,’ we’re not just aiming to reduce audit fatigue; we’re building a future founded on continuous, evidence-based trust that can finally scale with the dynamic nature of cloud and AI.”
To learn more about the CAR, go here.
