The Black Box Problem: CIOs Need Visibility Into AI Agent Behavior
The Black Box Problem: CIOs Need Visibility Into AI Agent Behavior
Publish Date: 2026-06-18 12:59:00
Source Domain: www.forbes.com
It seems every company is either using AI agents or working to deploy them across their processes. And while the technology is game-changing, one risk looms in the background: It’s not easy to know what your agents are doing. In generative AI, your AI agents tackle each issue anew—and they don’t always follow the same strategies. Just like some people, AI agents can make poor decisions—but it’s much easier to ask a person to go through the steps that led to an action.
Adding a transparency layer to AI agents can be transformative, and can improve security and efficiency—as well as insulate you from legal damages. I talked to Matan Bar-Efrat, cofounder and CEO of Rein Security, about why it’s imperative to know what your agents are doing. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.
Until next time.
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Artificial Intelligence
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The Trump administration may have a relatively hands-off policy for regulating AI models—unless the company is Anthropic. Last week, the administration ordered the enterprise AI powerhouse to immediately cut access to its most advanced Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models to any foreign national, ostensibly because users could get around safety guardrails. The end result was Anthropic shut down its two most powerful models to everyone, writes Forbes senior contributor Jodie Cook.
Anthropic acknowledged both of these systems posed big risks when they were released. Mythos, unveiled in April, was able to find critical vulnerabilities in many key systems. Anthropic tightly controlled its release, granting access to a limited group while security issues were addressed. Fable 5 was released days before the Trump administration’s ban, and Anthropic said it had guardrails to…
