AI agents adapt.
Your zero-trust strategy must, too.
Agentic AI is moving from answering questions to taking action across endpoints. Security leaders now need to consider not only which AI tools are trusted, but what those agents are permitted to access, execute and change.
Access the Gartner® report, Enforce Zero Trust to Strengthen Endpoint Protection in the AI Age, provided complimentary by Airlock Digital. The research explores how zero-trust principles can evolve to address AI applications, agents, privileges, runtime behavior and endpoint access.
AI governance is becoming an endpoint question
AI agents can operate through legitimate applications and processes, interact with sensitive data and systems, and continue working toward an objective with limited oversight.
The Gartner research examines how organizations can extend zero-trust practices beyond users and devices to include AI applications, agents, execution context, privileges and behavior. It also considers the role of application control, AI usage controls, runtime monitoring, human approval and measurable policy enforcement.
Assess how AI adoption and shadow AI are changing endpoint risk
Extend identity and least-privilege principles to AI agents
Establish boundaries around tools, data, scripts and high-risk workflows
Monitor AI-initiated activity and distinguish it from user activity
Measure visibility, control and policy-enforcement effectiveness
Trusted to run should not mean trusted to do anything
Knowing that an AI application is present is only the beginning. Organizations also need to understand what trusted AI agents are doing, define the boundaries within which they may operate and maintain evidence of the actions they take.
Airlock Digital is sharing this Gartner research because it adds a valuable perspective to a conversation every security team is beginning to have: how to enable agentic AI while maintaining visibility, accountability and control where actions occur — the endpoint.
The research stands on its own. Airlock’s role is to make it accessible and augment it with a practical endpoint-security perspective — understanding agent behavior rather than simply inventorying AI tools, and defining trusted operating boundaries for agent activity.
Is your zero-trust strategy ready for agents that act?
Which AI agents are active across our endpoints?
What can each agent access, execute or change?
Which actions require limits, stronger authentication or human approval?
Can we trace agent activity and explain why an action was permitted or restricted?
These questions reflect the report’s focus on agent identity, limited access, continuous monitoring, adaptive enforcement and accountability.
Start with the research
Use this Gartner report to help frame your organization’s approach to AI-agent identity, trust boundaries, runtime behavior and endpoint governance.
Gartner, Enforce Zero Trust to Strengthen Endpoint Protection in the AI Age, Deepak Mishra and Nikul Patel, 22 July 2026, G00846036.
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