Agent autonomy without guardrails is an SRE nightmare

What’s Happening

Breaking it down: João Freitas is GM and VP of engineering for AI and automation at PagerDutyAs AI use continues to evolve in large organizations, leaders are increasingly seeking the next development that will yield major ROI.

The latest wave of this ongoing trend is the adoption of AI agents. But, as with any new technology, organizations must ensure they adopt AI agents in a responsible way that allows them to facilitate both speed and security. (let that sink in)

More than half of organizations have already deployed AI agen Featured Agent autonomy without guardrails is an SRE nightmare João Freitas, PagerDuty CleoJ made with Midjourney.

The Details

But many early adopters are now reevaluating their approach. Four-in-10 tech leaders regret not establishing a stronger governance foundation from the start, which suggests they adopted AI rapidly, but with margin to improve on policies, rules and best practices designed to ensure the responsible, ethical and legal development and use of AI.

As AI adoption accelerates , organizations must find the right balance between their exposure risk and the implementation of guardrails to ensure AI use is secure. Where do AI agents create potential risks?

Why This Matters

There are three principal areas of consideration for safer AI adoption. The first is shadow AI , when employees use unauthorized AI tools without express permission, bypassing approved tools and processes. IT should create necessary processes for experimentation and innovation to introduce more efficient ways of working with AI.

As AI capabilities expand, we’re seeing more announcements like this reshape the industry.

Key Takeaways

• Secondly, organizations must close gaps in AI ownership and accountability to prepare for incidents or processes gone wrong.
• The strength of AI agents lies in their autonomy.

The Bottom Line

Secondly, organizations must close gaps in AI ownership and accountability to prepare for incidents or processes gone wrong. The strength of AI agents lies in their autonomy.

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