AI Agent
An AI agent is a software entity that uses an AI model, typically an LLM, to plan, decide, and take actions in real systems, often chaining tool calls across multiple steps to accomplish an objective.
What an AI Agent Actually Is
An AI agent is not just a model. It is a model wrapped in the ability to act. The wrapping includes access to tools (APIs, databases, code execution environments), memory (short-term context, long-term storage), and a planning loop that decides which action to take next based on the current state.
A single AI agent might read email, query a database, draft a response, and execute a payment approval, all in a single session, all triggered by one user instruction. That capability is what makes agents useful and what makes them a distinct risk category.
AI Agents in the Enterprise
Enterprise agent deployment has accelerated with the Model Context Protocol (MCP), which gives agents a standardized way to connect to tools and data sources. As a result, organizations often have agents in production before their governance programs have cataloged them. Shadow AI frequently takes agentic form.
The security risks of AI agents in the enterprise are not hypothetical. Enterprises are seeing agents compromised through prompt injection in upstream content, tool poisoning via malicious MCP servers, and permission-scope failures that expose data the agent should never have been able to reach.
Governing AI Agents
Effective agent governance treats each agent as a distinct asset with its own permissions and scoping, its own risk profile, and its own monitoring requirements. See AI risk visibility as the foundation of responsible AI governance for the discovery and cataloging work that has to come before governance.
How Kovrr Approaches AI Agents
Kovrr's AI Security and Governance Platform discovers AI agents across the enterprise, including agents deployed through MCP and third-party platforms, and treats them as first-class assets in the AI risk register. Agent-specific scenarios, tool access maps, and permission audits are built into the platform natively.
Related Terms
Full AI Visibility. Full Control. One Connected Platform.
Enterprise AI is expanding faster than most governance programs can track. Kovrr connects every AI signal across browser, endpoint, network, identity, and vendor systems into a single platform so security, governance, and risk teams work from the same evidence.
