Agent Sprawl: The Ops Headache Nobody Budgeted For
A new survey finds two-thirds of companies running AI agents had an agent-related incident in the past year — and only 36% require agents to be registered before deployment.
Even IT teams are losing count of how many AI agents their companies run. In a Morning Consult survey of 362 U.S. IT decision-makers, 96% said they were confident in their agent inventory — yet two-thirds of companies running agents had an agent-related incident in the past year.
Only 36% require agents to be registered before deployment, and 61% think employees are likely spinning up agents on their own. The pattern echoes the early days of shadow IT, except agents don''t just store data — they take actions.
The fix isn''t to ban agents; it''s to govern them. A central registry, clear ownership for each agent, spending and permission limits, and monitoring that treats agents like employees with system access.
Companies that get governance right early will scale agents safely. Those that don''t will learn about their agent inventory the hard way — from an incident report.