Netwrix Innovation Week: Why agentic AI security matters

I recently sat down with Jeff Warren, our chief product officer, who has been working through this problem with customers for a while. Our conversation today covers what he’s seeing in the field and what we are working on in the labs to help customers gain visibility and control over their AI agents. In the session tomorrow, Jeff will demo this software which will be part of Netwrix 1Secure™ when it launches.

Explore every Innovation Week conversation to hear Netwrix and industry experts discuss data and identity security.

Agents show up in more places than you’d expect

An AI agent, as Jeff describes it, is a program that uses AI to make decisions on its own and then take action. By that definition, many organizations are already running agents without calling them that or even realizing it. Microsoft 365 alone offers more than a dozen ways to create one, and business users can build them inside SharePoint sites on their own. Workflows built in tools like n8n that contain LLM steps and personal assistants in employee endpoints add to the list.

Agent sprawl creates identity sprawl, but unlike human identities governed by IGA software, agentic identities often lack governance. When the employee who built an agent leaves, that agent may persist in the environment, adding to the shadow AI problem. Tracking and managing AI agents’ access rights to sensitive data is another challenge. Our recent survey found that 70% of organizations lack a unified strategy connecting identity and data visibility which is a problem that extends to agents.

Security teams have been here before

We went through the same cycle decades ago with human identities, and again with service accounts: visibility first, then governance, then guardrails. Yet many organizations are racing to adopt AI agents before they can see or govern them.

Get early access

Netwrix 1Secure with Agentic AI Security finds the AI agents in your environment, scores your risk, and lists what to fix first. Try 1Secure free for 14 days to improve data and identity security and compliance.

The beta is open now, and we’re enrolling our first group of customers. Beta customers get their own space in the Netwrix Community, with direct access to Jeff and the rest of the 1Secure product team, so your feedback on what’s missing and which platforms we should support goes straight to the people building it.

Join the beta