Deloitte raises concerns as AI agent deployment outpaces security frameworks
Deloitte warns firms are adopting AI agents faster than governance, raising risks around security, data privacy, and accountability without proper oversight.
Deloitte raises concerns as AI agent deployment
A new report from Deloitte warns that businesses are deploying AI agents faster than they are implementing security protocols and safeguards. This is raising serious concerns about security, data privacy, and accountability.
According to the survey, agentic systems are moving from pilot phase to production so rapidly that traditional risk controls, which were designed for more human-centric operations, are struggling to keep up with security demands.
Despite the increasing use of AI agents, only 21% of organizations have implemented robust governance or oversight systems for them. While 23% of companies reported currently using AI agents, this figure is expected to rise to 74% in the next two years. During the same period, the proportion of businesses not adopting this technology is expected to fall from 25% to just 5%.
Misgovernance is the threat
Deloitte is not calling AI agents inherently dangerous, but rather states that the real risks are associated with insufficient context and weak governance. If agents operate as independent entities, their decisions and actions can easily become opaque. Without strong governance, managing them becomes difficult, and insuring against mistakes becomes nearly impossible.
According to Ali Sarrafi, CEO and founder of Covent, the solution lies in controlled autonomy. “Well-governed agents with clear boundaries, policies, and definitions, managed by an enterprise in the same way it manages an employee, can rapidly execute low-risk tasks within the scope of clear safeguards, but escalate to human intervention when tasks exceed defined risk thresholds.” "With detailed action logs, observability capabilities, and human oversight for high-impact decisions, agents become systems you can inspect, audit, and trust, rather than mysterious bots."
As the Deloitte report shows, the pace of AI agent adoption is set to accelerate in the coming years, and only those companies that deploy this technology with transparency and control will gain a competitive edge, not those that deploy it the fastest.
