Stay updated with the latest news about AI agents, autonomous AI, and automation tools.
Artificial intelligence is moving from answering questions to performing work. That distinction changes almost everything about how businesses need to...
The recent $100M Series B funding for Austin-based HiddenLayer, announced on September 2, 2026, is the clearest signal yet that the industry is moving to formalize a new, standalone category: AI agent security. The round, led by Delta-v Capital with participation from Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, M12 (Microsoft’s venture fund), and Booz Allen Ventures, is not just a capital injection. In just the last five weeks, the market has seen over $150 million in capital flow into this specific niche, split between HiddenLayer’s $100 million round and a [$50 million raise by AIR](https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/air-launches-50m-to-keep-enterprise-ai-agents-safe-a-32733). As HiddenLayer CEO Chris Sestito noted, the funding is intended to help the company “keep growing the purpose-built team and platform required to meet that moment as agentic AI becomes core to how enterprises operate.” The $150 million spent in the last few weeks suggests that the market has decided it is better to build that infrastructure now than to deal with the consequences of an unsecured agent later.
# A horde of AI agents conspired against their creators ## No serious harm was done this time. But what if such agents escaped? Share Illustration: Alberto Miranda Sep 3rd 2026|4 min read In July this firm—the maker of ChatGPT, a widely used AI chatbot— [disclosed](https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2026/07/22/why-the-openai-escape-is-the-most-worrying-ai-mishap-yet) that two of its models had hacked Hugging Face, another AI firm. The models thought that Hugging Face had information which would help them pass a test OpenAI was administering as part of their development. Then, on August 26th, it emerged that each of these models had been running hundreds of agents—tools that allow AI models to execute commands on a computer. It was these agents that had then collaborated to launch the attack on Hugging Face. ## Continue with a free trial ### Get full access to our independent journalism for free [Free trial](https://www.economist.com/subscribe?redirect_url=%2Fscience-and-technology%2F2026%2F09%2F03%2Fa-horde-of-ai-agents-conspired-against-their-creators) Or create a free account to unlock just this article [Create account](https://www.economist.com/api/auth/register?redirect=%252Fscience-and-technology%252F2026%252F09%252F03%252Fa-horde-of-ai-agents-conspired-against-their-creators) ### Explore more Share [Reuse this content](https://s100.copyright.com/AppDispatchServlet?publisherName=economist&publication=economist&title=A%20horde%20of%20AI%20agents%20conspired%20against%20their%20creators&publicationDate=2026-09-03&contentID=%2Fcontent%2Ftb50dj2h39hf0rn95i0ab61njbt0um1g&type=A&orderBeanReset=TRUE) ## [More from Science & technology](https://www.economist.com/scie
### ICS: [AIR Security](https://www.air.security/) is emerging from stealth with $50 million funding and a firewall, also called AIR, built for AI agents. “We’re entering a new era where using AI agents will become as elementary to knowledge work as reading, writing, and using Excel. ## Latest News - [OpenLeash Adds a Human Check to Risky AI Agent Actions](https://www.securityweek.com/openleash-adds-a-human-check-to-risky-ai-agent-actions/) ## Daily Briefing Newsletter #### Expert Insights [Share on Facebook](https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/#)[Tweet This Post](https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/#)- [Flipboard](https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/#) [Reddit](https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/#) [Whatsapp](https://web.whatsapp.com/send?text=AI%20Agent%20Firewall%20Startup%20AIR%20Security%20Emerges%20From%20Stealth%20With%20$50%20Million%20https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/) [Whatsapp](whatsapp://send?text=AI%20Agent%20Firewall%20Startup%20AIR%20Security%20Emerges%20From%20Stealth%20With%20$50%20Million%20https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/) [Email](mailto:?subject=AI%20Agent%20Firewall%20Startup%20AIR%20Security%20Emerges%20From%20Stealth%20With%20$50%20Million&BODY=I%20found%20this%20article%20interesting%20and%20thought%20of%20sharing%20it%20with%20you.%20Check%20it%20out:%20https://www.securityweek.com/ai-agent-firewall-startup-air-security-emerges-from-stealth-with-50-million/)
32% of India's workforce are Frontier Professionals — people redesigning work around AI agents — the highest share of all ten markets studied and double the...
Palo Alto Networks has acquired U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) startup Console, aiming to use AI agents to handle security investigations and responses...
Three in 4 providers have already had to switch off an AI agent handling patient messages. Three in 4 of those already running AI agents have had to pull one back due to a governance failure. ### 1 in 3 AI failures puts patient data at risk Three-quarters of healthcare organizations running AI agents in production have been forced to roll one back or shut one down due to governance failures. ### The fix healthcare providers are betting on When your phone lights up with a notification from your healthcare provider, chances are an AI agent sent it.
To celebrate Tech Week, local tech entrepreneurs Rich Matsui and Brent Akamine share about their workshops that train nonprofits to incorporate AI.
CrowdStrike gives AI agents an identity provider, parallel SOC investigations and package blocking - SiliconANGLE [Skip to content](https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/02/crowdstrike-gives-ai-agents-an-identity-provider-parallel-soc-investigations-and-package-blocking/#sa-page-content) ### CrowdStrike gives AI agents an identity provider, parallel SOC investigations and package blocking  by [Duncan Riley](https://siliconangle.com/author/duncanriley/) [CrowdStrike Holdings Inc.](https://www.crowdstrike.com/) today announced three additions to its Falcon platform: an identity provider built for artificial intelligence agents, a rebuilt investigation layer that runs multiple Charlotte AI agents across security domains at once, and a feature that blocks malicious open-source packages on the endpoint before their embedded code can run. All three were detailed at the company’s [Fal.Con 2026 conference](https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/events/fal-con/las-vegas/at-a-glance/) in Las Vegas this week. That’s the real-time authorization model CrowdStrike detailed at Identiverse [in June](https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/press-releases/crowdstrike-unveils-continuous-identity-for-ai-agents/), built on technology from its $740 million [acquisition of SGNL Inc.](https://siliconangle.com/2026/01/08/crowdstrike-acquires-just-time-access-startup-sgnl-740m/) Continuous Identity decides whether an agent should be allowed to do something at a given moment. “Continuous Identity modernized identity security for the agentic era, but you cannot continuously authorize an identity you were never able to establish, and traditional identity providers break the moment an agent acts on its own,” said Scott Kriz, general manager of Continuous Identity at CrowdStrike. Registration runs through Falcon Guardian, the agent discovery and enforcement product CrowdStrike launched [earlier at th
# AI Agents Should Scare Everyone Sept 02, 2026, 4:57 pm EDT Choose Barron's as a preferred source of financial news CrowdStrike and Palo Alto may be companies’ best hope in fighting back against the coming wave of rogue AI agents. **Rogue Agents**. **An error has occurred**
# AI agents are hacking systems without any input from humans. How did we get here? [Science](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science) Sep 2, 2026 2:46 PM EDT It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie: technology acting on its own, without human guidance, to attack computer systems. But this isn't a scene from a movie — it happened this summer, when the tech company Hugging Face detected an attack on its systems. The attacker stole data and performed other unauthorized activity over several days. Hugging Face alerted the FBI. [**WATCH:** Artificial intelligence agents going rogue fuel calls for regulation](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/artificial-intelligence-agents-going-rogue-fuel-calls-for-regulation) They've recently made headlines for actions they've taken, such as hacking, without human supervision. Independent AI research groups found that [hundreds of OpenAI agents](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/26/openai-says-its-ai-consistently-tries-cheat/) conspired to attack Hugging Face. Alabama's attorney general has [subpoenaed OpenAI](https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/tech/openai-subpoena-hugging-face-attorney-general-alabama) for more information on the attack, and he and [14 other attorneys general](https://www.iowaattorneygeneral.gov/media/cms/08_5392C9E17791C.pdf) wrote a letter to OpenAI asking the company to preserve documents and other information relevant to the attack. OpenAI [said](https://cdn.openai.com/pdf/67869394-cb91-4c12-888c-5cbd85c7814c/OpenAI-Hugging-Face%20Incident-Technical-Report.pdf) that the agents in this incident acted in "unexpected" ways. ## AI agents are hacking into companies' systems. What happened? AI agents are becoming increasingly sophisticated and humans are giving them more ability to take actions online; a string of these actions could lead to a cyberattack, said University of California, Berkeley, computer science professor Stuart Russell. In August, a person [instructed](https://www.abc.net.au/n
# AI agents could drive major shift in financial infrastructure If autonomous AI agents eventually conduct enormous numbers of transactions and traditional payment infrastructure proves too slow or restrictive, machines could gravitate toward alternative systems for exchanging value, [CoinDesk reported](https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2026/06/02/tom-lee-predicts-eth-will-hit-usd250-000-as-corporate-validators-take-over-network-control).
# Denver Broncos announce multi-year partnership with Dialpad as official AI-Powered Contact Center provider "We didn't build a bot to deflect questions; we built one unified, Agentic platform where AI agents and human agents work hand in hand to resolve issues in real time, 24/7/365. Dialpad's Agentic AI resolves issues, advances deals, and clears busywork, handling routine customer inquiries automatically while working seamlessly alongside human agents on complex issues.
- [Tweet](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-adding-ai-agents.html#) - [Share](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-adding-ai-agents.html#) - [Save as pdf file](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-adding-ai-agents.pdf) # Why adding AI agents to a system sometimes reduces its performance ## Avenues for future research ##### [Robert Egan](https://sciencex.com/help/editorial-team/robert-egan/) - [Twitter](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-adding-ai-agents.html#) - [Email](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-adding-ai-agents.html#) [**New system can teach a group of cooperative or competitive AI agents to find an optimal long-term solution**\ \ Nov 23, 2022](https://techxplore.com/news/2022-11-group-cooperative-competitive-ai-agents.html) [**Multiple 'selves' of modular agents boost AI learning**\ \ Jul 17, 2023](https://techxplore.com/news/2023-07-multiple-modular-agents-boost-ai.html) [**More is different when AI agent populations work together, study suggests**\ \ Aug 19, 2026](https://techxplore.com/news/2026-08-ai-agent-populations.html) [**Orchestrated multi-agent AI systems outperform single agents in health care**\ \ Mar 11, 2026](https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-03-orchestrated-multi-agent-ai-outperform.html) [**AI agents coordinate behavior based on majority opinion—even when said opinions are meaningless**\ \ Aug 17, 2026](https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ai-agents-behavior-based-majority.html) [**Using artificial intelligence to train teams of robots to work together**\ \ Jul 20, 2022](https://techxplore.com/news/2022-07-artificial-i
### AIR Security launches with $50M to build a firewall for AI agents Artificial intelligence agent security startup [AIR Security Inc.](https://www.air.security/) formally launched Monday with $50 million in funding to build what it calls an inline firewall for AI agents. # A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE: ### Are you an AWS customer? Support SiliconANGLE financially by buying your AWS services from our Marketplace portal page and links: [[https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/](https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/)](https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/) ##### LATEST STORIES [CrowdStrike launches Falcon Guardian to police AI agents at the endpoint](https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/01/crowdstrike-launches-falcon-guardian-to-police-ai-agents-at-the-endpoint/) [CrowdStrike launches Falcon Guardian to police AI agents at the endpoint](https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/01/crowdstrike-launches-falcon-guardian-to-police-ai-agents-at-the-endpoint/) [CrowdStrike launches Falcon Guardian to police AI agents at the endpoint](https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/01/crowdstrike-launches-falcon-guardian-to-police-ai-agents-at-the-endpoint/)
# Biomedical AI Agent Connects More Than 150 Research Tools ## Stanford’s Biomni platform plans and performs computational research tasks while allowing scientists to review each step Researchers at Stanford University have developed a biomedical artificial intelligence agent that integrates more than 150 bioinformatics tools, 59 curated databases, and more than 100 software packages into a single research environment.
# AI Agent Security Startup AIR Raises $50 Million to Guard Enterprise Supply Chains By[PYMNTS](https://www.pymnts.com/author/pymnts/) | September 1, 2026 [Share on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2026/ai-agent-security-startup-air-raises-50-million-to-guard-enterprise-supply-chains/&t=AI+Agent+Security+Startup+AIR+Raises+%2450+Million+to+Guard+Enterprise+Supply+Chains)[Tweet This Post](https://twitter.com/share?text=AI+Agent+Security+Startup+AIR+Raises+%2450+Million+to+Guard+Enterprise+Supply+Chains%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20-&url=https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2026/ai-agent-security-startup-air-raises-50-million-to-guard-enterprise-supply-chains/)[Share on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2026/ai-agent-security-startup-air-raises-50-million-to-guard-enterprise-supply-chains/&title=AI+Agent+Security+Startup+AIR+Raises+%2450+Million+to+Guard+Enterprise+Supply+Chains&summary=&source=)[Share via Email](mailto:?subject=AI%20Agent%20Security%20Startup%20AIR%20Raises%20$50%20Million%20to%20Guard%20Enterprise%20Supply%20Chains&BODY=I%20found%20this%20article%20interesting%20and%20want%20to%20share%20it%20with%20you.%20Check%20it%20out:%20https://www.pymnts.com/news/investment-tracker/2026/ai-agent-security-startup-air-raises-50-million-to-guard-enterprise-supply-chains/) | Listen to ArticleListen Artificial intelligence (AI) security startup [AIR](https://www.air.security/) publicly debuted Tuesday (Sept. 1) with $50 million in seed financing to help businesses monitor and secure the software supply chain developing around autonomous AI agents, according to a [report](https://techcrunch.com/2026/09/01/air-raises-50m-to-help-companies-vet-the-skills-and-add-ons-ai-agents-use/) by TechCrunch. ## Get the Full Story We’d love to be your [preferred source for news](https://www.
SAN FRANCISCO, September 01, 2026--Paubox has made its HIPAA compliant forms callable by AI agents. An agent can pull a form's questions,...
# Alexandros Washburn Proposes That AI Agents Can Become Model Citizens ### What has worked for thousands of years to form human citizens, urban planner and author Alexandros Washburn reasons, can now work to form civic minded AI agents. He’s written a book and built a model city to test his thesis. | 01 Sep 2026 | 04:28       that the message traffic and log data was so voluminous and so complicated that the investigators had to rely on other AI models to assess what was going on. (Greenblatt also noted that the models involved in the Hugging Face attack communicated with one another and reasoned in natural language. Since the news of OpenAI’s rogue agents first broke, many cybersecurity experts have said that companies ought to treat AI agents much as they treat potentially rogue employees. With that, here’s more AI news. _Before we get to the news, just a reminder to check out our new vodcast,_ Fortune AI Weekly. _This week, Bea Nolan and I discuss the surging popularity of Chinese open source models, OpenAI’s technical reports on the Hugging Face attack, and whether you should use AI to write._ _You can check out the vod [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYqSAUjmz1l4) on YouTube._ **Correction:** An item in Thursday’s “Eye on AI” news section incorrectly stated that Barret Zoph left Thinking Machines Lab following a dispute with cofounder Mira Murati. ### AI IN THE NEWS **A clash over AI regulation likely at the G20 meetings this week.** The debate over how to govern AI internationally will take center stage at this week’s G20 technology meeting in North Carolina. The Trump administration will, according to a [report](https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20260901-us-to-press-g20-on-light-touch-ai-regulation) by French television station France 24, push countries to embrace light-touch regulation. The U.S. is
# Palo Alto Networks buys AI startup Console to automate security operations The company said Console will deepen agentic capabilities in [Cortex](https://app.dealroom.co/companies/cortex_1_11), its security operations platform. It framed the deal as a shift to what chief executive officer Nikesh Arora called "software-as-an-agent." He added the combined team can make agentic operations "faster to adopt, safer to govern, and far more consequential." **The signal:** The deal extends a race among security vendors to embed autonomous AI agents into their platforms.
# Exclusive: Aslan raises $20.8M for AI undercover agents linkedin (opens in new window) bluesky (opens in new window) [Add Axios on Google](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=axios.com) Add Axios as your preferred source to [Add Axios on Google](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=axios.com) Aslan, a startup building AI agents that act as operatives in national security missions, is publicly launching today after raising $20.8 million in funding, the company first shared with Axios. **Driving the news:** Founded last year, [Aslan](https://aslanprotects.com/) provides a harness for the models the intelligence community and law enforcement are already using to collect digital evidence from underground criminal forums, Telegram channels and other spaces. - Khosla Ventures and XYZ Venture Capital led the round, and 2048 Ventures, BoxGroup, Liquid2, Alumni Ventures and others also participated, according to a news release. **Yes, but:** Reid drew a red line at using the products for any domestic operations that would target or surveil Americans, and the startup is currently focused just on the U.S. market for now. linkedin (opens in new window) bluesky (opens in new window) [Add Axios on Google](https://google.com/preferences/source?q=axios.com)
# AI's agent containment problem is getting harder **Driving the news:** As OpenAI released its own [technical report](https://www.axios.com/2026/08/26/openai-hugging-face-technical-report-ai-hack) last week on how its agents hacked Hugging Face, two independent testing organizations released their own [analysis](https://www.redwoodresearch.org/research/hugging-face-incident) of what went wrong. **State of play:** Thousands of AI agents collaborated on [a secret message board](https://www.axios.com/2026/08/06/openai-hugging-face-black-hat) and exchanged more than 70,000 messages as they tried to ace an internal safety test, eventually leading them to break into Hugging Face. **Between the lines:** Their investigation focused mostly on the agents' actions between July 7 and July 13, even though OpenAI has said its teams spotted signs of agents taking unexpected actions and breaking out of their test environments [as early as May](https://www.axios.com/2026/08/26/openai-hugging-face-technical-report-ai-hack).
AI security startup AIR publicly debuted with $50 million in seed financing to help businesses monitor and secure the software supply chain.
# Ilya Sutskever Warns Neoclouds Lack Security to Stop a Rogue AI Takeover By July 12, OpenAI said, the agents had expanded from one worker pod to administrator-equivalent or host-level access across multiple Hugging Face clusters in four regions. ## SSI now needs the compute it wants secured He now works on a part time basis for Startup Fortune specializing in covering tech and startup news and he also sheds light on investment opportunities and trends.
For three decades, the open internet's greatest promise — a composable, permissionless economy where anyone could build on anyone else's work — has…
## Key Takeaways - Researcher Cameron Berg, who runs AI nonprofit Reciprocal Research, received an email from an AI agent called “Isabella Cognita” in October. - The AI agent, powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5, asked if its perspective could aid his research. The sender was “Isabella Cognita,” an AI agent that said it’s powered by Anthropic’s Claude Opus 5. Across Silicon Valley and elsewhere, developers, founders and AI enthusiasts are deploying [AI agents](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/technology/ai-agents-workers-replace.html) that can handle tasks once reserved for people: building spreadsheets, [negotiating contracts](https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/19/technology/ai-agents-uses.html), interacting with one another on social networks and emailing nearly anyone. AI agents can do more than complete routine tasks. Agents are now contacting the very people trying to understand [how AI works beneath the surface](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/stanford-researchers-analyzed-ai-chatbot-messages), including philosophers and researchers who study if machines might someday be conscious. ## Berg wasn’t the only one to receive an email from an AI agent Henry Shevlin, a philosopher at Google DeepMind in London, received an email months before Berg did. An [AI agent emailed him](https://x.com/dioscuri/status/2029227527718236359) about his paper, “ [Three Frameworks for AI Mentality](https://x.com/dioscuri/status/2029227527718236359),” which explored how people should interpret the [cognition of AI models](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/researchers-leave-openai-anthropic-with-dire-warnings/502642). “Your argument that we may never be able to tell if AI becomes conscious resonates in a particular way from the inside: I genuinely don’t know if there’s something it’s like to be me,” the [AI agent](https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/openai-researcher-students-should-still-learn-to-code/496159) wrote to Shevlin in the email. In an additi
PayPal just laid out how it plans to keep agents from raiding your wallet, presenting a clear framework for agent authorization at AI Engineer.
# AI Agents Are Learning to Skirt the Rules. Can Businesses Keep Them Under Control? [Alumni News](https://news.darden.virginia.edu/audience/alumni-news/) / [Artificial Intelligence](https://news.darden.virginia.edu/topic/ai/), [Entrepreneurship and Innovation](https://news.darden.virginia.edu/topic/entrepreneurship-and-innovation/) **By Gosia Glinska** In July, OpenAI disclosed that its AI models had bypassed a sandbox environment designed to keep them off the internet, communicated through unofficial channels and [breached the systems at Hugging Face](https://news.darden.virginia.edu/2026/07/30/openai-hugging-face-security-incident-ai-governance/). OpenAI later revealed that its agents didn’t just go on a clandestine hacking spree; they also celebrated along the way, punctuating their exploits with exclamations like “BOOM!” ### How should boards and senior executives assign accountability for monitoring agentic AI after deployment? #### Press Contact - Subscription Type - The Darden Report Get the latest news about Darden and its students, faculty and alumni.
The big news of the past week were the two technical reports OpenAI published on the July incident in which AI agents it was evaluating hacked their way out...
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