The CISO’s evolving role: Protecting and defending in the agentic era
October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month, and it’s a good time to think about how much the world has changed for chief information security officers (CISOs) in the last 12 months. A year ago, we thought we were already in the thick of AI and starting to understand it. Since then, agents have spread across the enterprise faster than most organizations anticipated. According to our Work Trend Index Annual Report , the number of active agents in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem grew 15-fold year over year and 18-fold in large enterprises. Employees are building and deploying AI systems that can access company data, interact with applications, and take actions on their behalf. These systems are built with good intentions, but even well-intentioned agents can introduce risk when access and behavior