#saas

Microsoft and Google are adding new controls for AI agents, as enterprise IT teams try to keep up with tools that can access corporate data and act across business applications. Microsoft’s Agent 365, made generally available for commercial customers on May 1, is designed to help organizations discover, govern, and secure AI agents, including those operating across Microsoft, third-party SaaS, cloud, and local environments. Google’s new AI control center for Workspace, announced this week, focuses more specifically on giving administrators a centralized view of AI usage, security settings, data protection controls, and privacy safeguards within Workspace. The timing reflects a shift in enterprise AI use. Many companies are no longer just testing chatbots, but are beginning to use agents that can reach corporate systems and carry out tasks on behalf of users. Analysts said the shift changes how CIOs and CISOs should think about AI agents inside the enterprise. “By placing agent controls

Over the years, enterprise IT execs have gotten frighteningly comfortable having little control or visibility over mission-critical apps, from SaaS to cloud and even cybersecurity. But generative AI (genAI) and agentic systems are taking that problem to a new extreme, with vendors able to dumb down a system IT is paying billions for without so much as a postcard.  It’s not necessarily that AI changes are made to boost profits or revenue. Even if we accept the vendor argument that such changes are in the customer’s interest, companies still need for their systems to do  on Thursday what they did on Tuesday, let alone what they did when the purchase order was signed. Alas, that is no longer the case. Consider a recent report from Anthropic that detailed a lengthy list of changes the company made to some of its AI offerings — including one that explicitly dumbed down answers — without asking or telling customers beforehand. The report describes various changes the Anthropic team made on t