AI Agents: MSSPs' New Security Frontier

AI agents are being widely used in business, but companies struggle with deciding which agents to trust and what access they should have. This creates a significant opportunity for managed security service providers, or MSSPs. Here's the thing: while tools can identify traffic and enforce policies, a human still needs to make the critical judgment calls. For MSSPs, this means moving beyond just blocking bad bots. It's about helping customers manage AI agent access as an ongoing security function. This work is practical and repeatable, and its value increases as customers use more agents and automated workflows. What's interesting is that bot defense used to focus on two simple questions: Is it a machine? And do you want it there? Now, with AI agents, there's a third type of automated traffic. These agents act like bots, retrieving data and calling APIs, but they do so on behalf of a user. The challenge is that the intent behind the agent's action isn't visible in the request itself. The bottom line: traditional detection methods can confirm a request came from a bot, but they can't tell you if your customer actually wanted that bot there. This is where permission management becomes a crucial managed service, focusing on judgment rather than just labor.