-- Acuvity, the pioneer in AI security and governance, today released its 2026 Cybersecurity Predictions report, a provocative assessment of the security challenges enterprises will face as AI agents are deployed across their organizations.
The report states that by the time the 2026 RSA Conference opens its doors, every vendor will claim to secure AI agents. Identity platforms will call authentication "agent security." CASBs will call gateway inspection "agent governance." Endpoint vendors will call workload inventory "agent visibility." According to Acuvity, the vast majority of these claims will be fiction.
"For decades, cybersecurity has operated on a fundamental assumption that humans are the actors, and systems and data are the targets," said Satyam Sinha, CEO and co-founder of Acuvity. "Every framework we've built, every tool we've deployed reflects that assumption. That model breaks when autonomous agents make decisions, access data, and take actions faster than any human can observe, crossing every boundary our security architectures were designed to defend in isolation. The industry knows this shift is coming and is responding with marketing claims instead of architectural honesty."
Key Predictions in the Report
- Every Security Vendor Will Claim They Secure Agents: They don’t. Identity platforms will call authentication "agent security," CASBs will call gateway inspection "agent governance," and endpoint vendors will call workload inventory "agent visibility." None of these offerings address the core problem: autonomous agents making decisions, taking actions, and chaining tools in ways legacy controls were never built to understand or secure.
- Security and Governance Will Converge: AI is forcing security teams to collaborate with risk, compliance, and IT governance functions, and technical controls like AI gateways and policy engines are now encoding high-level governance intent as runtime rules.
- Discovery Will Remain the Biggest AI Security Challenge: Agents are deployed inside applications, embedded in workflows, attached to plugins, connected through MCP servers, and invoked through tools that were never designed to surface security-relevant activity. Existing discovery capabilities were built to inventory users, devices, workloads, and applications, not decision-making software that operates across all of them simultaneously.
- AI Runtime Security Becomes Non-Negotiable: AI now operates through dynamic chains of tools, plugins, and MCP-connected services, creating conditions that cannot be governed by static or preconfigured controls. Analysts across 2024 and 2025 have emphasized the need for enforcement layers designed specifically for autonomous systems. In 2026, runtime enforcement will become a baseline requirement for any organization deploying AI at scale.
- Shadow AI Worsens Dramatically Due to MCP Servers: Employees are quietly adding MCP servers to their AI clients without centralized approval, creating a sprawl of unofficial AI connections with high privileges. If overly permissive, these become launchpads for data leaks, internal sabotage, or breaches.
To read all 10 predictions, download the report here.
About the company: Acuvity is the AI security and governance platform for the enterprise. Purpose-built for autonomous AI, Acuvity delivers runtime inspection and enforcement across applications, agents, and MCP servers, giving organizations the visibility and control required to operate AI safely at scale. Founded by cybersecurity and engineering veterans, Acuvity is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California. Learn more at acuvity.ai.
Contact Info:
Name: Jessica Marie
Email: Send Email
Organization: Acuvity
Website: https://acuvity.ai/
Release ID: 89180673
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