The figures are striking. Ninety-nine percent of enterprise decision-makers across the UK, Germany, France, and the Middle East and Africa say data sovereignty is critical to their operations. The same survey, conducted by Veeam across 1,000 IT and security leaders at organisations with 500+ employees, found that 72.5% are actively deprioritising sovereignty to accelerate AI deployment. The result is a visibility gap that most are not tracking.
AI workflows are now the region's largest blind spot. Forty percent of leaders say data used for AI and analytics is their primary operational gap — more than they cite for public cloud environments (38%), cross-border data flows (34%), or third-party vendors (33%). Shadow IT, where systems run entirely outside governance, affects 32% of respondents.
The UK sits at the exposed end of the spectrum. Forty-five percent of UK respondents identify their AI data as their biggest blind spot — the highest proportion in Europe. Risk reduction drives most of what sovereignty work is happening: 58% of UK leaders cite preventing data breaches as their primary motivation, ahead of control or strategy.
Germany shows the trade-off in starker terms. Eighty-two percent of German enterprise leaders acknowledge that AI speed is winning over data controls. France's leaders are less likely to rate sovereignty critical at all, focused instead on protecting intellectual property. MEA organisations are the most operationally mature on implementation — 60% fully operationalised — but report the highest exposure to third-party ecosystem risk at 38%.
"But many now face a critical trade off: move quickly with AI without fully understanding, protecting and managing their data, or slow progress to meet sovereignty requirements. Our research highlights the need for greater visibility and control. By ensuring data is understood, governed and trusted, organizations can confidently accelerate AI adoption while reducing risk and meeting sovereignty expectations," said Tim Pfaelzer, General Manager and Senior Vice President, EMEA at Veeam.
Most sovereignty action remains reactive. Internal audits and compliance reviews (33%) are the main triggers, ahead of any proactive governance strategy. Organisations express strong confidence in GDPR (90%) but significantly lower clarity on newer frameworks such as the EU AI Act — a gap that widens as AI adoption expands the surface area regulators are likely to examine.
"If you can't see where data is going, who can access it, and what AI systems are doing with it, you don't have control. And without control, AI quickly becomes a board-level liability," said Andre Troskie, EMEA Field CISO at Veeam.
The research was conducted by Censuswide on behalf of Veeam between April 21 and April 27, 2026.
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