Govern Every AI Agent From Registration To Retirement.
Know which agents are running, who owns each one and what it did. Agent Authority keeps a registry of every AI agent with a named owner and purpose, records every action against the human it acted for, and lets you quarantine or retire an agent in seconds.
Ungoverned Agents Outlive The People Who Deployed Them
Agents are created by individual teams and developers, often with no central record. When a project ends or the owner leaves, the agent keeps running with whatever credentials it was given. Security teams cannot say how many agents exist, who is accountable for each one, or what they did last week, and there is no clean way to retire them. This is the new joiner, mover and leaver gap: agents that outlive their humans.
One Accountable Record For Every Agent
Agent Authority registers every agent as a non-human principal with a named owner, a purpose and a list of allowed tools. Shadow agents that were never registered are discovered and mapped to an owning team. Every action is recorded against the agent and the person it acted for, and any agent can be quarantined or decommissioned from one console.
Governance and lifecycle
What AI Agent Governance Covers
- Every agent is registered in Agent Authority with a named owner, a stated purpose and the tools it is allowed to use.
- Shadow agents that were never registered are discovered on devices and in SaaS, then mapped to an owning team to be governed or decommissioned.
- Each agent moves through a governed lifecycle from discovery and registration to retirement, and when an owner account is disabled, the agent is flagged so the team can assign a new owner or revoke it.
- Every agent action is recorded with the agent ID, the delegating human, the tool called, its parameters, the time and the result.
- Any agent can be quarantined in seconds with a deny-all policy, or revoked outright by revoking its certificate.
- Each agent's registry entry records the tools it is allowed to use, so scope drift is visible at every review.
- Audit records export in a compliance-ready format, giving auditors a traceable record of what each agent did and on whose behalf.
Where agent governance matters
Where Agent Ownership And Oversight Break Down
AI agents are already operating in your environment: coding assistants, data pipelines, customer chatbots and security automation. Each one needs an owner, a record of what it did, and a way to retire it. Our agentic AI governance guide covers how to build that program across teams.
Coding agents with a named owner and a commit record
Engineering teams adopt AI coding assistants faster than security can track them. Assistants are connected to repositories and CI/CD pipelines with the developer's credentials, and nobody keeps a record of which assistants are in use, who set them up, or which commits they produced.
SecureAuth approach
Each coding agent is registered with the developer who owns it and the repositories it is meant to touch. Every AI-generated commit and action is logged with the agent's identity, and unregistered assistants found on developer devices are tagged as shadow AI.
Background agents that outlive their projects
Scheduled agents running data pipelines, report generation and cross-system sync are often set up once and forgotten. They run on embedded human credentials, keep working after the person who deployed them moves on, and leave no clear owner to ask when something breaks.
SecureAuth approach
Background agents are registered to an owning team with their own OAuth client credentials, separate from any person. When an owner's account is disabled, the agent is flagged so the team can assign a new owner or revoke it from the admin console.
Customer-facing agents with an audit record per customer
Conversational AI agents act for many customers across CRM, knowledge bases and ticketing systems. When a customer or regulator asks what an agent did with their data, most teams cannot answer from scattered application logs.
SecureAuth approach
Every data access is recorded in one place with the agent ID, the customer context and the delegating user. Teams can account for any single conversation, and an agent that misbehaves can be quarantined in seconds.
SOC automation with oversight and a kill switch
Security teams deploy agents that query threat intelligence, SIEM and identity logs around the clock. These agents need broad read access, which makes them valuable targets, yet few teams review what the agents actually did or have a fast way to stop one.
SecureAuth approach
SOC agents are registered to the SOC team with a stated read-only purpose, and behavioral analytics flag query patterns that drift from their normal profile. Every API call is logged with agent ID and timestamp, and quarantine blocks the agent within seconds if its behavior deviates.
Agent lifecycle
From Discovery To Decommission, In One Console.
AI agents are principals in your environment and deserve the same lifecycle rigor as employees. Agent Authority tracks each agent from the moment it is discovered or registered to the moment it is retired, with a complete record in between. The decision on each individual call is covered by runtime authorization for AI agents.
Agent registry with a named owner
Every AI agent is a named, versioned, registered non-human principal with an accountable owner, a stated purpose and a list of allowed tools. No anonymous agents, no shared credentials.
Shadow agent and NHI discovery
Find agents that were never registered, on devices and in SaaS, along with the service accounts, API keys and tokens they rely on. Map each one to an owning team.
Ownership and credential findings
Findings flag risks such as a live secret on a disabled principal, a secret that never expires, or an owner account that is disabled, so stale agents are caught early.
Per-action audit log
Every agent action is logged with agent ID, delegating user ID, tool name, parameters, timestamp, and result. Compliance-ready export for auditors and regulators.
Quarantine and decommission
Push a deny-all policy to stop an agent in seconds, revoke its certificate to reject its connections everywhere, or strip specific permissions while it keeps running in a reduced scope.
How it compares
Agent Authority Versus Service Accounts And Manual Inventories
Identity provider service accounts track the credentials that exist. A manual inventory records owners until it goes stale. Agent Authority keeps the registry, the owner and the audit trail current, and can stop an agent in seconds. Read the announcement of real-time governance for agent identities.
| Capability | Agent Authority | IdP service accounts | Manual inventory |
|---|---|---|---|
| Complete registry of agents, including unregistered ones | Yes | Registered accounts only | Whatever teams report |
| Named owner recorded for every agent | Yes | Optional field | Yes |
| Flags agents whose owner account is disabled | Yes | No | At the next manual review |
| Per-action audit trail tied to the delegating human | Yes | Sign-ins and token issue | No |
| Quarantine or revoke an agent in seconds | Yes | Disable account, tokens live until expiry | No |
| Lifecycle status per agent (sanctioned, under review, shadow AI) | Yes | No | Whatever the sheet says |
| Evidence for auditors | Exportable per-action record | Account and sign-in logs | Spreadsheet snapshot |
| Decommission record when an agent is retired | Yes | Account deleted, history lost | No |
Industry solutions
How Each Sector Keeps Its Agents Accountable
Ownership, audit and revocation for the agents each sector is deploying.
Financial Services
Trading agents, risk analysis bots and compliance automation registered with named owners. Every action recorded against the delegating employee for regulatory review, with an exportable audit trail.
Healthcare
Clinical decision support agents accessing patient records, each with an accountable owner. Every record access is audited and tied to the clinician the agent acted for.
SaaS Platforms
Customer-facing AI features registered per tenant with a named owner, and every agent action auditable per customer from a single console.
Cybersecurity
SOC automation agents registered to the SOC team with a stated read-only purpose and a behavioral profile. Quarantine in seconds if an agent deviates from its expected pattern.
Software Engineering
AI coding assistants inventoried per developer, with unregistered assistants flagged as shadow AI. Full audit of AI-generated changes, and owner-disabled findings when a developer leaves.
“We couldn't give agents access to our production systems without knowing exactly what they were doing and being able to kill them immediately if something went wrong. Agent Authority gave us that control.”
CISO, Enterprise SaaS Platform
AI Agent Governance FAQ
What is AI agent governance?
AI agent governance is the set of controls that keep every agent known, owned and accountable over its whole life. It covers a registry of agents with named owners, discovery of agents nobody registered, policy that limits what each agent may do, a per-action audit trail tied to the delegating human, and the ability to quarantine or retire an agent. Agent Authority provides these controls in one console.
How do we find AI agents that are already running?
Agent Authority discovers shadow agents that were never registered, on devices through installed sensors and in SaaS, and surfaces the service accounts, API keys and tokens those agents rely on. Each discovered agent can be mapped to an owning team, classified by risk, and then brought under governance or decommissioned. The registry tags each agent with a status such as sanctioned, under review or shadow AI.
What happens when an AI agent's owner leaves the company?
Agent Authority records a named owner for every agent and reports findings on non-human identities, including an owner account that has been disabled and a live secret on a disabled principal. Those findings show which agents have lost their accountable owner, so the team can assign a new owner or revoke the agent from the console in seconds instead of leaving it running unattended.
How is AI agent governance different from service-account management?
Service-account management in an identity provider tracks which accounts exist and controls their credentials, mostly at sign-in and token issue. It does not see what an agent does after that. Agent Authority adds the agent context: a named owner and purpose, discovery of unregistered agents, runtime policy on every call, a per-action record tied to the delegating user, and quarantine that does not wait for tokens to expire.
What evidence does Agent Authority give auditors?
Agent Authority keeps a tamper-proof audit trail in which every agent action is logged with the agent ID, the delegating user, the tool called, its parameters, the time and the result. Delegation chains show which human each action was performed for. Records export in a compliance-ready format, so auditors get a complete evidence trail without the team assembling it from scattered application logs.
How do we revoke or quarantine an AI agent?
Agent Authority revokes or quarantines an AI agent from its console, with three levels of response. An immediate quarantine pushes a deny-all policy to the agent's enforcement sidecar and blocks its outbound requests within seconds. A hard revocation revokes the agent's certificate, so its mTLS connections are rejected everywhere. A graduated response strips specific permissions while the agent keeps running in a reduced scope.
Capabilities related to AI Agent Governance
User Provisioning
SCIM 2.0, just-in-time provisioning, lifecycle management
Multi-Tier Organizations
Delegated admin, org hierarchies, inherited policies, B2B tenancy
Deployment Flexibility
Cloud, on-prem, hybrid, private cloud, sovereign hosting
Branding & Localization
Custom domains, white-labeling, multi-language, regional compliance
Identity & Consent Store
Scalable, configurable, and flexible pools
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