What others miss

Shadow agents

Your employees are running AI agents right now that nobody approved. Finding them is the easy part, and the part everyone sells. The question that matters is what those agents are allowed to do next.

In short

A shadow agent is an AI agent running in your organization without sanction. Certiv discovers shadow agents at the endpoint, where an agent's decision loop is actually observable, and enforces policy on every action before it executes. Discovery alone is a crowded market; governing what the agent may do is the product.

Nobody is acting in bad faith

AI agents will get used by malicious outsiders and insiders, and Certiv helps in both cases. But the bigger problem in the enterprise today, by a wide margin, is the rogue agent deployed by a well-intentioned employee.

The engineer who wires a coding agent into a production database to move faster. The analyst who pastes customer data into a chatbot to summarize a deal. The PM who builds a copilot that touches systems nobody mapped. They are trying to do their jobs, and the agents they spin up become the threat surface.

Why your stack cannot see them

Every layer of the existing stack sits somewhere the agent is not.

AI gateways

Traffic that never routes through the gateway is invisible. A shadow agent pointed at a local model or a personal API key never touches it.

CASB

Governs sanctioned SaaS. An agent calling tools on the laptop is not SaaS traffic.

EDR

Sees the process, not the agent. A Python script and an autonomous agent look the same from the device layer.

Proxies

Filter network traffic. They cannot see a tool call that reads a local file or runs a shell command.

Certiv lives on the endpoint and works with whatever model, framework, or tool the agent uses, so coverage never depends on traffic crossing a proxy.

See, understand, govern

01

See them

Scout runs at the endpoint, where an agent’s full decision loop is observable. Discovery does not depend on traffic crossing a proxy, so it covers sanctioned rollouts, agents employees installed themselves, and agents running against local models that never touch the network.

02

Understand them

Knowing an unsanctioned agent exists is not the same as knowing whether it is dangerous. Scout captures the context around every session (which tools were called, what data was touched, how the session unfolded) and summarizes it, so you can tell the engineer automating a changelog from the one wired into production.

03

Govern them

The Policy Engine evaluates agent actions against policy before they execute. A shadow agent is not simply blocked out of existence; its risky actions are blocked, paused, or steered while the harmless ones proceed. Discovery alone changes nothing. Enforcement is the point.

Straight Answers

What Teams Ask About Shadow Agents

Expand to view common questions.

What is a shadow agent?
A shadow agent is an AI agent running inside your organization that nobody sanctioned: a coding assistant an engineer installed, a copilot a product manager wired into internal systems, a script that calls a model API on a personal key. It is the AI-agent equivalent of shadow IT, with a much larger blast radius because agents take actions rather than just storing data.
Is this Shadow AI discovery?
Discovery is a necessary first step, but on its own it is a smaller problem in a more crowded market. Plenty of tools will hand you a list of unsanctioned AI. Certiv exists to govern what that list contains: evaluating each agent action against policy before it executes, and blocking, pausing, or steering the ones that violate it. Finding the agent is table stakes; deciding what it may do is the product.
Who is actually creating shadow agents?
Overwhelmingly, well-intentioned employees. The engineer who wires a coding agent into a production database to move faster. The analyst who pastes customer data into a chatbot to summarize a deal. The PM who builds a copilot touching systems nobody mapped. Nobody is acting in bad faith. They are trying to do their jobs, and the agents they spin up become the threat surface.
Why can’t our existing stack find shadow agents?
Because every layer of it sits somewhere the agent is not. Gateways and proxies only see traffic routed to them. CASB governs sanctioned SaaS. EDR watches processes on the device but cannot distinguish an autonomous agent from any other program. Certiv is endpoint-native, so coverage never depends on traffic crossing a proxy. It works with whatever model, framework, or tool the agent uses.
Does finding shadow agents mean surveilling employees?
No. Scout observes AI agents and agentic activity, not everything a person does on their workstation. It does not monitor browser history, record keystrokes, or indiscriminately inspect documents. If an AI agent is not involved, Certiv is not looking. Privacy Mode goes further: routine, policy-compliant agent work stays private by default.

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