Rubrik: AI Agent Adoption Creates Security Gaps

New research from Rubrik Zero Labs indicates a growing security gap as enterprises adopt AI agents. Organizations are implementing autonomous systems without adequate controls. Here's the thing: 86% of IT and security leaders expect AI agents to outpace their security guardrails within the next year. Only 23% report full visibility into the agents in their environments. This leads to an inability to secure identities that are already making decisions and interacting with critical data. What's interesting is that non-human identities tied to these agents are proliferating rapidly, creating a "shadow workforce." These identities often have persistent access and limited oversight, opening new pathways for misuse. The report also found that over 80% of respondents say agents require more manual oversight than they save in efficiency. Nearly nine out of ten leaders are concerned about meeting recovery objectives as agent-driven threats increase. Almost half of respondents expect agentic systems to drive most attacks in the coming year. The bottom line: AI strategy is now directly linked to resilience strategy, and prioritizing deployment speed over control mechanisms could lead to uncontainable failures.