The rise and risks of agent management platforms

Written by Joe McKendrick, Contributing WriterContributing Writer May 4, 2026 at 7:09 a.m. PT Tharon Green/ZDNET/Getty ImagesFollow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. Enterprises worldwide have 28.6 million active agents, a figure forecast to exceed 2.2 billion by 2030, according to Statista. Agent wranglers are required to bring management sensibilities to this growing space. So, can AI agent sprawl be tamed? Some vendors are giving it a try, leading to a new technology category, agent management systems, that are tasked with managing networks of AI agents.  An agent management platform essentially acts as a digital HR department for AI agents, and experts suggest now is the right time for such offerings.  Agents running outside of management frameworks are essentially the AI equivalent of shadow IT.  "It works until it doesn't, and when it stops working, you have no audit trail, no version control, and no governance to fall back on," noted Shelly Palmer, professor at Syracuse University and CEO of The Palmer Group. Agent management solutions on the market include Google Vertex AI Agent Builder, Amazon Bedrock Agents, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Decagon AI, and Sierra AI, serving various purposes from orchestrating systems to multi-agent automation.  These platforms are essential to the future of agentic automation. The key to success is to "treat agents as infrastructure rather than features," said Diptamay Sanyal, principal engin