TORONTO, May 21, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cority, the converged platform for preventing EHS+ risks in operations, today announced new evidence of an accelerating market shift: an increasing share of companies with leaner operations are leaving fragmented and homebuilt EHS+ tools behind in favor of converged, AI-ready platforms. Cority saw a 119% year-over-year growth in new small and medium-sized business customers in 2025. For the last two decades, modern EHS+ platforms have primarily been adopted by the largest enterprises. This data signals the market is undergoing a massive shift.
Cleaveland/Price, a 380-person Pennsylvania-based manufacturer of high-voltage electrical switchgear for the electric utility industry, is one of those customers. The company spent years managing EHS on paper, eventually moved to a basic system as it grew, and quickly hit its ceiling. Today, Cleaveland/Price runs incident management and EHS observation on Cority, is preparing to roll out risk management, and is evaluating Cortex AI agents as the next step — a modernization arc Cority's data shows is now repeating across the segment.
'When we started with Cority, we needed a system to help take our EHS processes to the next level. We had moved from paper forms to a basic system, but needed something we could truly grow into,' said Nick Braun, EHS Manager at Cleaveland/Price.
'We began with the incident module and included our EHS Observation Program, and the difference was immediate — we went from free-text chaos to real, trendable data almost overnight, which is now used proactively across our communication tools and systems. Now we're preparing to roll out risk management, and we know Cortex AI is on the horizon. That's the beauty of it — we didn't have to implement everything at once; we were able to set our own pace to ensure the process was effective.'
For most of the last two decades, modern EHS+ platforms were the domain of the largest enterprises — global manufacturers, energy companies, and chemical operators with dedicated EHS teams and complex multi-site compliance footprints. Smaller and leaner operators have historically relied on a mix of spreadsheets, paper, and single-purpose point tools to keep up. AI is changing that.. Predictive risk insights, agentic workflows, and automated compliance — capabilities that once required enterprise-scale data infrastructure — are now the baseline expectation across the market. But smaller, leaner companies are finding that those tools can't be retrofitted to deliver them. New research from Cority's State of EHS+ Technology 2026 report confirms the pace: 62% of EHS+ leaders now say the need to apply AI is pushing them toward integrated platforms and IT consolidation, and 88% report that fragmented data and disconnected systems are limiting their teams' ability to use AI.
'We've been calling EHS+ an inflection-point industry for a while, and what's striking now is how clearly that shift shows up among companies with leaner operations,' said Ryan Magee, CEO of Cority. 'They've watched what fragmented EHS+ technology costs their larger peers, and they're done waiting for AI to be retrofitted onto tools that weren't built for it. They want the same modern foundation, sized to how they actually operate.'
'What's changed most is who's at the table. We're sitting across from EHS leaders at 400-person manufacturers and 1,500-person energy and chemical operators who five years ago wouldn't have engaged with a platform like Cority. They were patching together point tools and figuring it out themselves. Now they're walking in saying they want what their larger competitors have — and increasingly, they're saying they want the AI piece, not as a future state but as a starting point, ' said Emily Crawford, CRO at Cority.
These customers most often start with Cority’s core packages — Safety Core, Safety Essentials, Environmental Compliance Core, or Sustainability. Each is built on the same converged platform architecture and embedded Cortex AI agents that anchor Cority's enterprise deployments, sized to how leaner operations actually run.
Where the growth is coming from
The strongest uptake is coming from the same industries that have long defined Cority's business — manufacturing, mining and metals, energy, oil and gas, chemicals, and construction — now navigating the most significant operational reset in decades. Tariffs, supply chain reshuffling, the AI infrastructure build-out, and the global push to electrify and decarbonize are forcing these companies to stand up new facilities, new workforces, and new compliance programs faster than legacy EHS systems were built to support.
These are also the companies where the cost of getting EHS+ wrong has always been highest. As change accelerates, more of them are choosing modern, AI-ready platforms over patching together point tools.
What's next
Cority will continue this conversation at ASSP Safety 2026 in Anaheim, California next month, demonstrating live how a safety program at a 500-person manufacturer can stand up the same AI-enabled, converged platform that runs at a 50,000-person global enterprise — and what changes when it does.
Cority's findings reinforce a pattern the company has been documenting across its market for more than a year: as AI reshapes EHS+, companies of every size are converging on modern, agent-enabled platforms.
About Cority
Cority helps customers see and prevent risks across their operations in real time. Our EHS+ platform converges people, processes, data, and AI agents to provide a clear view of information people can trust, automate workflows that make people more impactful, and deliver personalized insights and expertise to improve decision-making. Cortex AI puts domain-expert intelligence directly into everyday workflows — secure by design, governed by you, and built to scale. While most solutions respond to risks one at a time, Cority helps prevent them across environmental management, employee health, safety, quality, and sustainability. For 40 years, Cority has been the market leader in EHS+, recognized by top analysts and trusted by more than 1,500 of the most complex organizations worldwide. Learn more at cority.com.
Media Contact: Natalie Rizk natalier@theriotmind.agency
