In an Illumio survey, 49% of 1,100 IT and security managers said they can see and track every action their AI agents take, and 26% said an AI tool connected to their systems without approval.
Network security company Illumio surveyed 1,100 IT and security managers. 70% said their companies now let AI make decisions that required human approval a year ago. 49% of the managers said they can see and track every action their AI agents take.
Key takeaways
- 70% said their companies let AI make decisions that needed human approval a year ago.
- 84% said they can clearly see what data and systems their AI uses, but 49% said they can track every action it takes.
- 92% said that if an attacker took over one of their AI tools, or it went beyond its job, they could stop it before it reached critical systems or data.
- 62% said they started using AI tools before they had the safeguards they needed.
- Asked to pick their two main ways of controlling AI, respondents most often chose guardrails built into the AI (44%), limits on what the AI can access or affect (42%), and human oversight and approval (41%).
Up to a third of respondents are comfortable letting AI act on security and IT systems without human review
32% of respondents said they are comfortable letting AI run security investigations with no one reviewing its work. 29% would let it release new code without review, and 28% would let it change the live systems their business runs on.
26% are comfortable letting AI grant or revoke employees’ access to systems without human oversight. 26% would also let it reset passwords for the administrator accounts staff use to run critical systems.
56% said their company accepts more AI-related risk than it did a year ago. 62% said they started using AI tools before they had the safeguards they needed.
Most say they can see and stop their AI, but only half say they can track every action
84% said they can clearly see what data and systems their AI uses. 92% said that if an attacker took over one of their AI tools, or it went beyond its job, they could stop it before it reached critical systems or data.
When Illumio asked what their security teams can observe, 49% said they can see and track every action an AI agent takes. Another 32% said they see most actions, 12% see only what the AI produced and not the steps it took, and 6% see little or nothing.
Over three in four had an AI-related security problem in the past year
76% of respondents said they had at least one AI-related security problem in the past year. 35% reported their AI recommended something that would have created a security risk if they’d followed it.
31% said outside attackers used AI to write phishing emails or impersonate someone to get into their systems. 28% reported an AI-related security incident or near-miss.
Respondents also reported their own AI going beyond what it was allowed:
- 26% said an AI tool connected to their systems without security approval.
- 24% said AI reached data it wasn’t supposed to.
- 24% said AI took an action nobody authorized.
The report doesn’t say whether any of the problems led to financial losses or data breaches.
Companies most often control AI with built-in guardrails, access limits, and human oversight
Illumio asked respondents to name the two main ways they control what their AI can do. The most common answers were rules set inside the AI (44%), limits on what the AI can access or affect (42%), and having a person oversee and approve its work (41%). 35% selected monitoring the AI’s activity. Least common, at 25%, was giving the AI a fixed list of approved actions and blocking everything else.
IBM and G2 surveys also found companies letting AI agents act without approval and with limited oversight
In an IBM survey of 3,221 executives, 75% expect AI agents to act without a person approving each step by 2027, but 37% say their governance is built for that. In a G2 survey of 1,019 business software buyers, 14% said their company watches its AI agents in real time and flags unusual behavior.
Methodology
Illumio surveyed 1,100 IT managers, security managers, and executives at companies with at least 500 employees in 10 countries and regions, including the U.S., the UK, Japan, and Brazil.
