AI Agents Are an Emerging Insider Risk Companies Can’t Ignore

The AI agents that companies are rapidly adopting to automate operational and security functions pose a significant insider threat to companies in 2026, Palo Alto Networks Chief Security Officer Wendi Whitmore told The Register in an interview.

Once the systems are embedded into workflows and granted authority, they can function as de facto insiders with access to sensitive systems and data, as Jessica Lyons writes in the article. The concern is not only external compromise, but also the structural risk created when automation outpaces governance, oversight, and internal controls.

Industry projections indicate a sharp rise in enterprise use of task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, accelerating adoption pressures on security and procurement teams.

Agentic AI defenders see practical value in agents that address persistent cyber-skills shortages by automating alert triage, and threat response functions inside security operations centers. But organizations are being pushed to deploy agentic tools faster than adequate security review processes can be developed, Whitmore explained.

Operationally, these agents are already being used to correlate internal threat intelligence with public indicators and classify security alerts for automated handling. As capabilities advance, agents may autonomously remediate issues or close alerts without human intervention.

However, such autonomy depends on configuration choices that grant broad permissions. This creates exposure to misuse, manipulation, and exploitation, particularly through prompt injection or tool misuse vulnerabilities that could redirect an agent’s actions.

For lawyers advising corporate clients, adoption of agentic systems raises governance, accountability, and risk-allocation questions. Delegated authority, least-privilege enforcement, auditability, and incident attribution become central when automated systems act on behalf of executives or security teams.

Counsel should anticipate scrutiny over access controls, approval workflows, and monitoring obligations.