Controlling AI agent sprawl: The CIO’s guide to governance

Corporate networks are filling up with AI agents, creating a governance blind spot for leaders managing multi-cloud infrastructures.

As distinct business units race to adopt generative technologies, CIOs especially find their ecosystems populated by fragmented and unmonitored assets. This mirrors the shadow IT challenges of the cloud era, but involves autonomous actors capable of executing business logic and accessing sensitive data.

IDC projects the number of actively deployed AI agents will exceed one billion by 2029—a forty-fold increase from current levels. In the first half of 2025 alone, agent creation surged by 119 percent. For enterprise leadership, the immediate challenge shifts from building these agents to locating, auditing, and governing them across platforms.

Salesforce has responded to this fragmentation by expanding its MuleSoft Agent Fabric capabilities, introducing automated discovery tools designed to centralise the management of AI agents regardless of their origin.

Automating discovery

Visibility remains the core issue for security and operations team...