Top 10 Records Management Trends in 2025

Automation and AI in Records Management

The rise of AI and automation are transforming every industry — and records management is no exception. Automation and AI differ slightly in how you can use them to elevate your business processes, but the ultimate benefit they offer is the same: to help you work smarter and faster. Some ways that these benefits apply to records management are:

• Categorizing documents for easier accessibility
• Record retention and disposal, to remove obsolete documents faster
• Applying classification principles, to improve compliance with industry standards

Your company can leverage both AI and automation to boost productivity, reduce costs, and help businesses scale their operations.

Enhanced Data Privacy

Data protection is one of the key records management trends, as businesses are continuously seeking cost-effective, secure ways to safeguard their data. Document management providers offer records storage, retrieval, and disposal solutions needed to keep your business’s data secure.

Such solutions reduce your risk of a breach — and are far less expensive than having sensitive data exposed.

Blockchain for Record Authenticity

The growing sophistication of the threat landscape poses a danger to your digital records storage. Companies across many industries are increasingly implementing advanced technologies such as blockchain to stop malicious actors from exfiltrating or tampering with their sensitive records, such as:

• Healthcare, to protect personal health information
• Legal, to track sensitive legal records
• Financial, to create greater transparency during transactions

Blockchain solutions make your documents far easier to track. By keeping a digital record of every party that’s handled your data, blockchain technology serves as a ledger to ensure greater transparency and tamper-proof record keeping. No one can edit these ledgers, and all appropriate parties must approve them, preventing your most sensitive information from being altered without a footprint.

The result is greater data security, transparency, and authenticity — and improved compliance as well.

Increased Digitization of Records and Electronic Storage

While physical records may be irreplaceable in some industries, most organizations are undergoing a digital transformation. By implementing electronic document management systems (EDMS), you can centralize your document storage and give your employees easier access to their most essential records.

These solutions also foster better inter-department collaboration, enabling all parties to stay on the same page.

The improved collaboration proves especially beneficial for multi-location businesses. Workers in these environments must be able to use the documents they need when they need them. EDMS software provides a single source of truth for all your employees, boosting their efficiency and communication.

Remote and Hybrid Teams Driving Mobile Records Solutions

One of the most pressing current records management trends is the increasing implementation of mobile solutions. Remote and hybrid work models have become far more common since the pandemic, which has increased the demand for mobile records management tools.

Workers increasingly view a flexible work schedule as a key employment benefit, but remote or hybrid work can potentially limit their access to important records. Worse yet, some remote scenarios may offer connections with limited security, compromising your sensitive information.

Implementing records management systems can help provide efficient document access while maintaining your cybersecurity posture. Virtual private networks are also useful for enabling a secure connection so that your employees can do their jobs from anywhere.

The Continued Reliability of Hard Copies and Offsite Storage

Despite the current records management trends of digitization and electronic storage, hard copies may still be necessary for some companies. Relying solely on digital records storage can lead to disruptions in your business continuity should a power outage or cyber attack occur, making physical records a valuable component of your disaster recovery plan.

Offsite storage solutions allow companies to keep important physical records in a secure, climate-controlled facility that protects them from environmental disasters and theft.

They’re also easily accessible in times of need, letting your company access core business records if a disaster should strike. Some regulations may require physical records as well, so offsite storage can also be essential for maintaining compliance.

New Environmental, Social, and Governance Goals

Achieving greater sustainability and social equity is a vision for many companies — and it’s the future of records storage.

Whether it’s physical files or hard drives, company records can consume valuable space and add harmful material to landfills. Many ESG goals aim to minimize paper consumption and other components of a company’s environmental footprint to improve sustainability. Records management solutions digitize important physical data and reduce waste to create a greener world, so make them a part of your sustainability vision.

The Role of Big Data in Records Management

AI-powered big data analytics helps you make sense of all that data by giving you actionable insights from your records that you never could have seen before. This helps you optimize your operations and implement data-driven decision-making for better business intelligence. Document management solutions help store your data for in-depth analysis, serving as the foundation for your big data efforts.

Continued Legal Compliance

As the cyber threat landscape becomes increasingly complex, organizations of all types must adhere to the leading regulatory standards to keep their most sensitive data secure. That means understanding and complying with the regulations that apply to their industry, such as:

• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)
• The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
• The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS)
• The California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

The more regulatory bodies update their data privacy requirements, the more companies can look to document management solutions to uphold compliance and maintain their record’s security.

Combating the Increased Ingenuity of Malicious Parties

Cybercriminals and other malicious actors are evolving every day. They know the value of targeting sensitive records, so companies must implement digital and physical solutions to keep their records secure.

On the digital front, that means maintaining a robust cybersecurity framework that keeps threat actors from infiltrating your network and a disaster recovery plan that ensures your business continuity. On the physical front, it means implementing secure shredding practices for sensitive physical records, such as paper documents, videos, and hard drives. Records management companies can augment your document security on both fronts.