Zentera Releases Report on AI Agent Security Challenges
News related to:Zentera Systems · 2 min read
Zentera Systems, a pioneer in overlay Zero Trust security for enterprise and AI workloads, has released a new research report titled "Agents of Change." The report highlights the challenges organizations face in safely scaling their rapidly expanding AI agent fleets. According to the survey of 251 security leaders conducted by Zentera in partnership with TrendCandy, most organizations already run more than 50 AI agents and anticipate larger deployments in the coming year.
The study reveals that security concerns center on AI agents executing correct actions in the wrong environment, crossing project boundaries, or gaining unauthorized access. A large majority of security leaders prioritize project-level isolation and explicit authorization as critical prerequisites to safely scaling agent fleets. However, fewer than half of these leaders express full confidence in their ability to monitor agent activity, audit actions, or prove explicit authorizations.
Zentera CEO Dr. Jaushin Lee emphasized the gap between the rapid growth of AI agents and traditional governance mechanisms.
The survey found that 58 percent of organizations operate more than 50 AI agents today, with 66 percent expecting to operate more than 50 agents within 12 months and 38 percent anticipating more than 100 agents. Thirty-six percent of leaders strongly agree that company leadership has directed the deployment of AI agents or agentic capabilities.
Leaders are particularly concerned about the context in which AI agents operate. Seventy-five percent are worried that an AI agent could perform the correct task in the wrong environment or location. Eighty-four percent believe agents can cross project boundaries more easily than employees, and 80 percent are concerned that agents may hold access that was never explicitly granted. A technically correct action can still be unauthorized because of where it happens and what it reaches.
Eighty-five percent of leaders say project-level isolation is essential or very essential for AI adoption. They rank explicit authorization first at 56 percent, with project isolation at 51 percent and session logging at 48 percent. Eighty-seven percent agree that authorization is the missing layer in agentic AI security.
Despite the growing number of AI agents, evidence of authorization remains a minority capability at the highest confidence level. Forty-three percent of leaders are very confident they can demonstrate what AI agents were explicitly authorized to do. Thirty-eight percent are very confident they can prove what an agent did through audit records. Thirty-seven percent monitor agent activity very closely. For each form of oversight the survey measured, most leaders stop short of the highest confidence tier.
Seventy-nine percent of leaders expect their organization will need to claw back or significantly restrict AI agent usage within the next 18 months. Gartner independently predicts that by 2027, 40 percent of enterprises will demote or decommission autonomous AI agents due to governance gaps that are only identified after production incidents occur.
Zentera's agentic AI security tool, Ensage AI, addresses these concerns by filling the gaps that traditional cybersecurity tools do not address. The tool manages the discovery, management, and Zero Trust policy enforcement of AI agents through a five-stage model: discover, authorize, contain, observe, and maintain.
The "Agents of Change" report provides actionable recommendations for security leaders to address the findings and concerns highlighted in the survey. To read the full report, visit Zentera's website at www.zentera.net/resources/agents-of-change-ebook.