As businesses prepare to roll out agentic AI systems by 2026, cybersecurity professionals are issuing new warnings about potential risks. Their concerns center on a potential increase in zero-day exploits on agentic autonomous AI systems. As decision-making AI automating AI agents begin to permeate every industry, cybersecurity threats are likely to focus on the unsheltered, poorly documented, and unprotected gaps in these systems.
Agentic AI describes systems able to command a range of functions without human help
These AI systems decide and even communicate with other programs. Businesses are starting to use them in customer service and analytics, and Gartner anticipates that multi-agent systems will be a major tech trend by 2026.
There are, however, significant risks. Agentic AI systems are implemented without sufficient security measures, allowing organizations to fall prey to advanced and complex cyber attacks.
VentureBeat states that 72% of organizations use agentic AI and that 75% of them cite governance as their first priority, with many of these businesses implementing agents with no formal control frameworks. Experts refer to this phenomenon as ‘Agent Sprawl.’ It is reminiscent of the early days of API development and use, when the rapid decentralization of the systems opened security gaps.
Rory Blundell, CEO of Gravitee, states that the absence of control systems around AI agents will likely result in ‘significant’ breaches of data.
Such a breach may occur when an AI agent accesses sensitive information, takes actions that were not anticipated, or improperly coordinates with other systems.
The risks are even greater with Zero-day exploits
Where an attack is targeted at an unprotected vulnerability that the developer has not yet discovered and closed. When considering agentic AI, some methods of exploitation involve manipulating agents using prompt injections, data-poisoning, or rogue behavior, which go undetected by conventional security firewalls.
Gartner’s 2026 trends report notes the importance of AI security platforms that monitor usage policies and agent activity, as well as enforce barriers against advanced AI threats, including rogue agent behavior and runaway data.
One of the biggest challenges is the lack of visibility. Without centralized control, organizations do not track what the agents are doing, how well they are performing, or where they are going off the rails. Agents are deployed by separate teams for certain tasks, causing fragmented ecosystems with little oversight. Such loose coordination leads to the potential for misaligned controls, wasted efforts, and unaddressed security vulnerabilities.
There are issues, and then there are solutions
Companies are starting to use governance tools like Gravitee’s Agent Mesh, which has a seamless interface for the oversight and control of the management of agentic systems. The mesh, which is built on Google’s open Agent-to-Agent (A2A) protocol, allows agents to communicate and work together securely, irrespective of the tech underpinning them. It also provides observability, policy management, and performance optimization, which are essential for safe AI scaling.
Garter is also bullish on the need for aggressive cyber defenses, saying that by 2030, 50% of all cyber spending will be on proactive measures, encapsulating automated denial and deception techniques that use AI to thwart attacks.
In spite of all the innovation, the reality is that for most organizations, AI is still not fully developed. VentureBeat describes a four-stage model that takes organizations from the most simplistic arrangement of systems, through single-agent use, and multi-agent deployment, all the way to fully governed ecosystems.
Expert sentiment reinforces the notion that organizations need to centralize controls and governance for these systems, as well as invest in advanced defensive technologies designed specifically for autonomous automated systems. The time to secure these systems is now. Businesses are already being targeted by advanced persistent automated threats, meaning security controls are to be implemented for safe use and operations.
