IBM Introduces Industry-First Software to Unify Agentic Governance and Security
- First-of-its-kind unified solution for AI security and governance risk management
- Integration supports compliance validation across 12 different frameworks including EU AI Act
- New automated red teaming capabilities to detect and fix vulnerabilities
- Enhanced monitoring capabilities for AI agents throughout their lifecycle
- Pre-loaded compliance accelerators for major global regulations and standards
- Expansion of availability to AWS data center in India
- Phased rollout of integration features throughout the remainder of the year
- Some planned capabilities for agent governance not yet available until June 27
Insights
IBM launches unified AI governance and security software to address risks as enterprises scale autonomous AI agents.
IBM has introduced industry-first software that unifies AI security and governance, a critical development as organizations increasingly deploy autonomous AI agents. The integration between watsonx.governance and Guardium AI Security creates the first comprehensive solution addressing both security and responsible use of AI systems at scale.
This innovation addresses a significant market gap. As enterprises rapidly adopt agentic AI (autonomous systems that can perform tasks without human intervention), the lack of unified governance tools has created substantial risk exposure. The new integration supports compliance validation against 12 different frameworks, including the EU AI Act and ISO 42001, positioning IBM favorably against competitors who typically offer either security or governance solutions, but rarely both.
The technical capabilities are substantial. Through collaboration with AllTrue.ai, IBM is enhancing detection of AI deployments across cloud environments, code repositories, and embedded systems. The solution includes automated red teaming to identify vulnerabilities, custom security policies analyzing input/output prompts, and advanced agent monitoring with metrics like answer relevance and faithfulness.
IBM's approach addresses the entire AI lifecycle with evaluation nodes built directly into agents, allowing real-time performance monitoring and root cause analysis. The Compliance Accelerators feature, available as an add-on, provides pre-loaded regulatory frameworks that streamline compliance processes for enterprises navigating complex global AI regulations.
For investors, this represents IBM's strategic positioning in the high-growth AI governance market, which becomes increasingly critical as regulatory scrutiny intensifies worldwide. The expanded availability on AWS data centers in India also suggests IBM is focused on global expansion of these capabilities in key growth markets.
New IBM integrations to help businesses keep their agentic AI – and other generative AI systems –secured and responsible at scale
Enterprises can red team agents, audit agents, detect shadow agents, and more
The new capabilities enhance and integrate watsonx.governance and Guardium AI Security to help clients keep their AI systems, including agents, secured and responsible at scale. Watsonx.governance is IBM's end-to-end AI governance tool and Guardium AI Security is IBM's tool for securing AI models, data, and usage.
"AI agents are set to revolutionize enterprise productivity, but the very benefits of AI agents can also present a challenge," said Ritika Gunnar, General Manager, Data and AI, IBM. "When these autonomous systems aren't properly governed or secured, they can carry steep consequences."
Today's new offerings include:
Integrating and Automating Agentic AI Security
IBM is enhancing the integration of IBM Guardium AI Security and watsonx.governance, providing enterprises with the first unified solution to manage security and governance risks associated with AI use cases. The integration supports users' processes to validate compliance standards against 12 different frameworks, including the EU AI Act and ISO 42001.
IBM is also introducing new capabilities to Guardium AI Security through a collaboration with AllTrue.ai, including the ability to detect new AI use cases in cloud environments, code repositories, and embedded systems –providing broad visibility and protection in an increasingly decentralized AI ecosystem. Once identified, IBM Guardium AI Security can automatically trigger appropriate governance workflows from watsonx.governance.
Recent updates to IBM Guardium AI Security also include automated red teaming to help enterprises detect and fix vulnerabilities and misconfigurations across AI use cases. And to help mitigate risks such as code injection, sensitive data exposure, and data leakage, the tool enables users to define custom security policies that analyze both input and output prompts. These features are available now in IBM Guardium AI Security, and their integration with watsonx.governance will roll out throughout the remainder of the year.
"The future of AI depends on how well we secure it today. Embedding security from the start is essential to protecting data, supporting compliance obligations, and building lasting trust," said Suja Viswesan, Vice President, Security and Runtime Products, IBM.
"One of the biggest challenges for security teams is translating incidents and compliance violations into quantifiable business risk. The rapid adoption of AI and agentic AI amplifies this issue," said Jennifer Glenn, Research Director for the IDC Security and Trust Group. "Unifying AI governance with AI security gives organizations the necessary context to find and prioritize risks, as well as the information to clearly communicate the consequences of not addressing them."
Enhanced Agentic AI Evaluation and Lifecycle Governance
IBM watsonx.governance can now monitor and manage AI agents across their entire lifecycle, from development to deployment. Evaluation nodes can be built directly into agents, allowing users to carefully monitor metrics like answer relevance, context relevance, and faithfulness – and help identify the root cause of poor performance. Planned future capabilities also include agent onboarding risk assessment, agent audit trails, and an agentic tool catalogue, which are expected to be available June 27.
Off-the-Shelf Compliance Capabilities
IBM watsonx.governance Compliance Accelerators provide select pre-loaded regulations, standards, and frameworks from around the globe, enabling users to identify relevant obligations and map them onto their own AI use cases. Content covers key regulations like the EU AI Act, the
Expertise to Scale AI Responsibly
To help clients scale AI responsibly, IBM Consulting Cybersecurity Services is introducing a new set of services that brings together data security platforms, like IBM Guardium AI Security, with deep AI technology and domain consulting. The new services will support organizations through their AI transformation journey: from discovering AI deployments and potential vulnerabilities, to implementing secure-by-design practices across AI layers, to governance guidance for a constantly evolving regulatory landscape. The new services build on IBM Consulting's experience helping hundreds of clients worldwide on AI strategy and governance, including Nationwide Building Society and e&.
To provide AWS clients with increased value and convenience, watsonx.governance is now also available on AWS data center in
Today's new capabilities and integrations give businesses the comprehensive governance and security they need to thrive in the agentic AI era. The innovations also dovetail with IBM's broader suite of IBM watsonx AI solutions, built to help companies accelerate the impact of generative AI, responsibly and securely.
About IBM
IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs, and gain a competitive edge in their industries. Thousands of governments and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently, and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity, and service. Visit www.ibm.com for more information.
Statements regarding IBM's future direction and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice, and represent goals and objectives only.
Media contacts:
Michele Brancati
Communications, IBM Software
Mbrancati@ibm.com
Kevin Zawacki
Communications, IBM Software
kevin.zawacki@ibm.com
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SOURCE IBM
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