Just a few years ago, AI at work meant chatbots and copilots. They changed how people write, search, and brainstorm almost overnight. They sped up everyday tasks and made AI feel mainstream. Still, most of that impact stayed in the “assist” lane: answering questions, summarizing documents, drafting text, and helping users think through problems.

Now the focus has shifted to systems that can take actions. An AI agent can connect to business apps, pull data, and kick off workflows. It can move from “suggesting” to “doing.” Nearly two-thirds of organizations are already experimenting with AI agents, according to McKinsey.

For security teams, autonomous agents create a visibility problem. As adoption grows, many organizations do not have a clear view of which agents exist, what they can access, or where they are connected. When software can act, security teams need to know what is running, what it can reach, and who is in control. Too often, that visibility is missing.

Reco, a dynamic AI-SaaS security solution, has launched AI Agent Governance, a new capability designed to close that gap. The company says it is extending its existing approach to visibility and control into AI agents operating across a SaaS ecosystem, including tools such as ChatGPT and Claude, enterprise platforms such as Salesforce Agentforce, and custom automation tools like n8n.

Why AI agents create a new governance problem

Traditional SaaS security has long focused on shadow apps, risky third party integrations, and overly permissive access. AI agents introduce another layer of complexity because they can do more than passively integrate with a single application.

One simple way to think about it: a plugin is usually a pipe. It moves information from Point A to Point B. An agent is closer to a junior employee with credentials. It can read data, interpret it, then take the next step across several systems. That step could be harmless. It could also be the exact moment data leaves the company or a critical setting gets changed.

“The challenge we’re solving is critical: security teams are blind to what AI agents are running, who has access to them, what permissions they hold, and which SaaS applications they’re connected to. Unlike SaaS plugins, AI agents can act autonomously, access sensitive data, and execute actions across multiple systems making the risk exponentially higher when they’re exposed or misconfigured.”

Gal Nakash, Reco Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer

What Reco’s AI Agent Governance is built to do

The new capability works inside Reco’s existing platform. Security teams don’t need to add another tool. They get visibility into AI agents the same way they already monitor SaaS apps, integrations, and user access.

AI Agent Governance is built to answer four questions security teams can’t reliably answer today: Which AI agents are running across our SaaS environment? What can each agent access? What permissions does it hold? And should it be allowed to operate? The platform inventories every agent, maps access and permissions, scores the risk, and gives teams a clear decision point: sanction agents that belong, block ones that don’t, or revoke excessive permissions.

Most organizations won’t ban AI agents outright. They need them. But they also need to know an agent connected to Salesforce can’t quietly pull customer data it has no business touching, or that a workflow automation tool isn’t sitting on admin-level access it doesn’t actually need. The risk scoring helps teams focus on what matters most. An agent with read-only access is different from one that can execute actions across multiple systems.

Reco says the goal is not to stop AI agents from running. It’s to make sure the ones that are running are visible, intentional, and appropriately scoped.

How AI Agent Governance fits into existing workflows

The capability integrates with tools security teams already use. It connects to platforms like Palo Alto Networks and Zscaler to pull in network-level visibility during discovery. It also links to SIEM, SOAR, and ticketing systems like Jira and ServiceNow, so teams can route findings into their existing remediation workflows. Security teams don’t need to add another tool or change how they work.

For MSSPs and security resellers that already use Reco to deliver SaaS security services, the AI agent governance capability integrates into the same platform they’ve deployed for clients. Reco says there’s no additional setup required. The agent data flows into the same system partners already use.

Reco’s approach is to make AI agent governance a natural extension of SaaS security rather than a separate tool. That means the same visibility, risk scoring, and policy controls teams use to manage apps and integrations now apply to AI agents operating across their environment.

Early signals from customers

Early customer feedback points to a familiar pattern: organizations often have far more AI agents in production than they assume, sometimes five to ten times more than expected. One security leader described the gap this way: “We thought we had maybe a dozen AI agents connected. Reco found over 80 AI agents, and half were connected to our core business applications with no oversight.”

The most common reaction, according to Reco, is relief. Teams are using the capability to quickly classify agents as sanctioned or unsanctioned, revoke excessive permissions, and establish governance policies before a breach happens.

The underlying message is practical: blocking AI tools outright is not realistic for most enterprises. 

The more workable path is to keep adoption moving while putting basic controls in place. Start by knowing what agents exist. Then decide which should be allowed to operate and under what conditions.

Market validation and industry pressure

The push for AI agent governance is showing up in analyst reports and breach data. Forrester recently highlighted the emergence of agent control planes as organizations struggle to manage and govern AI agents at scale, noting that governance must provide “independent visibility, enforce consistent policies, and maintain control” as agents proliferate.

Recent incidents underscore why. Just one month ago, Anthropic disclosed the first documented AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign, in which AI autonomously executed 80 to 90 percent of attack operations across roughly 30 organizations. The AI handled reconnaissance, vulnerability discovery, exploit development, and data exfiltration with minimal human supervision.

Reco says its data across 700+ customers shows AI agents as the fastest-growing category among the more than 10,000 third-party apps discovered through its platform. The company also cites research showing that over a third of SaaS breaches now originate from shadow SaaS or unauthorized tools. Organizations in highly regulated industries (financial services, healthcare, legal, and life sciences) face the highest immediate risk. These sectors handle sensitive data subject to strict compliance requirements like HIPAA, SOC 2, and GDPR.

AI agents are no longer just productivity tools. They are access paths. They hold credentials, act independently, and move across systems without human oversight. As 2026 begins, the organizations building governance now are the ones that won’t be explaining how an agent became the breach.

Origianl Creator: Ekaterina Pisareva
Original Link: https://justainews.com/industries/cybersecurity/reco-launches-ai-agent-governance-as-autonomous-systems-create-new-security-risks/
Originally Posted: Wed, 31 Dec 2025 11:08:01 +0000