AI agents put cybersecurity frameworks to the test

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AI agents are rapidly changing the way enterprises operate, reshaping the cybersecurity landscape for those that use them — and expanding risk across different parts of the business.

The appeal to deploy the technology is massive. Enterprises are set to more than double their spending on generative AI models and AI agents, with an additional $6 billion in spending on them in 2026, a recent Gartner report found. While some organizations report agentic systems and agents are used for very discrete tasks, others say they’ve embedded AI into human decision-making with plans to use it mostly without human intervention.

But in the last month, newer, more powerful models such as Anthropic’s Mythos and OpenAI’s launch of the Daybreak initiative have highlighted just how much access agentic AI can get. Executives must steer their organizations toward a new model for risk management that responds to the shifting profile of cybersecurity in the agentic era.

More than half of executives said their organization had an AI-related security incident or a close call last year, according to a recent Okta report. AI providers themselves have gotten in on enterprise AI security management as cyber risk becomes a greater concern.

Although many enterprises quickly jumped on the hype of agentic AI, tech leaders are realizing they introduce a complicated mix of benefits and risks to organizations, Shiva Varma, senior director analyst at Gartner, told CIO Dive. Agentic AI is changing the type and frequency of risk that enterprises face and is making security a cross-organization responsibility.

“They don’t solve every problem, they come with a lot of risk, and they are very…

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