Gartner: Mitigating security threats in AI agents
Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace, with AI agents emerging as a particularly powerful and transformative technology. These agents, powered by advanced models from companies like OpenAI and Microsoft, are being integrated into various enterprise products, offering significant benefits in automation and efficiency. However, AI agents bring a host of new risks and security threats that organisations must address proactively.
AI agents are not just another iteration of AI models; they represent a fundamental shift in how AI interacts with digital and physical environments. These agents can act autonomously or semi-autonomously, making decisions, taking actions, and achieving goals with minimal human intervention. While this autonomy opens up new possibilities, it also expands the threat surface significantly.
Traditionally, AI-related risks have been confined to the inputs, processing, and outputs of models, along with the vulnerabilities in the software layers that orchestrate them. With AI agents, however, the risks extend far beyond these boundaries. The chain of events and interactions initiated by AI agents can be vast and complex, often invisible to human operators. This lack of visibility can lead to serious security concerns, as organisations struggle to monitor and control the agents' actions in real time.
