The Silent Proliferation: Enterprise Security Grapples with the Rise of Invisible AI Agents

The push for better agent governance is not just coming from security researchers; it is being driven by some of the world’s largest and most influential software buyers. Patrick Opet, the global CISO of JPMorgan Chase, issued a stark warning to the software industry in 2025, identifying the third-party supply chain as a systemic risk. His concerns were rooted in real-world incidents where the bank had to isolate compromised suppliers to protect its core infrastructure.

Opet has since applied this same level of scrutiny to AI agents. His stance is that, ideally, an agent should be granted a distinct identity but no entitlements by default. IT departments must be able to confirm exactly who an agent is acting on behalf of before it is permitted to touch any data or systems outside a strictly defined boundary. When an institution with the scale and influence of JPMorgan Chase identifies agents as a primary supply-chain risk, it sets a standard that quickly trickles down to the rest of the industry through security questionnaires and procurement requirements.

Regulators are following a similar trajectory. The European Union’s AI Act, with obligations phasing in through 2026, is built on the assumption that an enterprise can maintain a complete inventory of its AI systems. The Act requires organizations to name owners and provide evidence of oversight for their AI deployments. For many organizations, the current lack of visibility into inherited agents poses a significant compliance risk. An organization that cannot enumerate its agents simply cannot comply with the law.

The Move Toward Standing Capabilities

As the number of agents in the enterprise grows from dozens to thousands, traditional methods of oversight—such as manual spreadsheets and quarterly reviews—are becoming untenable. A single product update from a major vendor can instantly introduce thousands of new agents into a corporate environment, rendering a static inventory obsolete overnight.

To address this, the industry is shifting toward "standing capabilities." This involves moving to a model of continuous, live visibility that can answer critical questions in real-time: what agents are operating, what permissions have they inherited, what can they reach, and how has their behavior changed since yesterday?

Modern platforms are now being developed to provide this level of granular, environmental analysis. One such example is Reco, which utilizes a "Reco Graph" to connect every human and non-human identity, application, permission, and agent action into a single, unified view. In this model, "reach" becomes the primary unit of analysis rather than simple configuration.

For a decade, the cybersecurity industry focused on building defenses for the AI that enterprises chose to use. But as the population of "un-decided" agents grows to become the majority, the focus must shift. The challenge for the coming years will not be securing the models themselves, but securing the sprawling, interconnected ecosystem in which these agents now live and act. This shift marks the beginning of a new era in enterprise security—one where visibility is the only viable path to control.