Guardian agents, a class of AI technologies designed to oversee and manage autonomous systems, are expected to account for 10 to 15 percent of the agentic AI market by 2030, according to a new forecast from research and advisory firm Gartner, Inc. These agents play a central role in ensuring AI reliability and security as organizations deploy increasingly autonomous systems across internal and external functions.
Guardian agents are AI-based systems that help maintain trustworthy interactions with AI. They operate as both assistants and autonomous overseers, performing tasks such as content review, behavioral monitoring, and action adjustment. Depending on their configuration, they can formulate and execute plans, or intervene to redirect or block AI behavior to stay aligned with predefined objectives.
The projected growth of these technologies reflects a broader trend in enterprise AI adoption. In a Gartner webinar poll conducted in May 2025 among 147 CIOs and IT function leaders, 24 percent said they had already deployed a limited number of AI agents, while 4 percent reported broader implementation. Another 50 percent indicated they are in the research or experimentation phase, and 17 percent expect to roll out agentic AI by the end of 2026. Gartner links this growing interest to the need for automated trust, risk, and security mechanisms capable of managing increasingly complex AI interactions.
According to Avivah Litan, VP Distinguished Analyst at Gartner, the accelerating autonomy of AI agents demands new forms of oversight. “Agentic AI will lead to unwanted outcomes if it is not controlled with the right guardrails,” she said. “Guardian agents leverage a broad spectrum of capabilities, using both runtime decision-making and deterministic evaluations to reduce risk and maintain control.”
The risks associated with agentic AI are expected to expand alongside their capabilities. In a related poll of 125 webinar attendees, 52 percent said their AI agents are primarily applied to internal administrative functions such as IT, HR, and finance, while 23 percent focus on customer-facing use cases. As adoption widens, agents face a growing array of threats, including input manipulation, data poisoning, and credential abuse. Gartner notes that agents can be misled by false or malicious information, interact with fraudulent sources, or behave unpredictably due to internal errors or external interference.
Litan emphasized that traditional human oversight cannot keep pace with the operational speed and scale of AI-driven systems. “As companies adopt multi-agent systems that communicate and act in real time, automated oversight becomes essential,” she said. “Guardian agents offer that control layer, helping prevent reputational and operational harm.”
Gartner outlines three primary functions that guardian agents typically perform: they review AI-generated output to check for accuracy and acceptable use, monitor agent behavior to flag anomalies, and intervene during operations by adjusting or halting actions as needed. While the application of these roles may vary, Gartner sees them as foundational to managing AI behavior safely and effectively.
Looking ahead, the firm predicts that 70 percent of AI applications will rely on multi-agent systems by 2028. Against this backdrop, guardian agents are expected to become a critical element in enterprise AI strategies, providing the mechanisms necessary to balance innovation with security and governance.
