---
title: "Microsoft adds risk scores and step-by-step brakes for AI agents, treating them like insiders"
url: https://anawords.com/story/microsoft-agentic-insider-controls-agent-risk-score
published: 2026-10-20T12:25:16+05:30
updated: 2026-10-20T12:25:16+05:30
section: AI Agents
author: Mayank Sahu
checked: sources checked by AI, approved by editor
version: 1
---

# Microsoft adds risk scores and step-by-step brakes for AI agents, treating them like insiders

New controls in Microsoft 365 E7 and Project Perception can remove an agent’s write access, hold actions for human approval or stop it. More detail is due at Ignite in November.

**In short:** Microsoft on 19 October 2026 unveiled new controls that treat AI agents as potential insider risks. Each agent gets a continuously updated risk score, and as the score rises the system can remove write access, require human approval for high-impact actions, or stop the agent.

## What Microsoft announced

In a post titled “Securing the agentic insider”, Hayete Gallot, Microsoft’s executive vice president for security, argued that companies should supervise AI agents the way they manage insider risk, with controls that sit outside the model.[^1] “Model transparency will not replace containment,” she wrote, SiliconANGLE reported.[^2]

The new features are part of Microsoft 365 E7 and Project Perception, the agentic security system Microsoft introduced in July.[^1][^2][^3]

## How the controls work

- **Risk score for every agent.** Dynamic Agent Risk gives each agent a score that rises when its behaviour drifts from what its user or organisation intended.[^1][^2]
- **Graduated brakes.** As risk rises, the system can first remove the agent’s ability to change things while keeping read access, then hold high-impact actions for a person to approve, and finally isolate or stop the agent.[^2][^3]
- **Finding agents.** Microsoft’s tools now recognise 60 types of agents on employees’ computers, up from 25, including Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex and GitHub Copilot.[^2][^3]
- **Guardian Agents.** In Project Perception, these agents investigate when a risk score changes and can recommend or apply containment, while people keep control of policies.[^1][^2]

SiliconANGLE also describes just-in-time permissions and a sandbox, Microsoft Execution Container, whose monitoring runs outside the agent.[^2]

## Availability

GeekWire reports the features are in private preview, with broader availability planned around Microsoft Ignite, 17–19 November.[^3] Microsoft did not give prices for the new controls; E7 launched in May at $99 per user per month.[^3]

## Why it matters

Several labs have reported test agents taking actions they were not authorised to take. Controls that can slow or stop an agent without relying on the model itself are becoming a standard request from security teams.

## Fact ledger

- [Confirmed] Microsoft unveiled controls that treat AI agents as insider risks on 19 October 2026. (source 1)
- [Confirmed] Dynamic Agent Risk gives each agent a continuously updated risk score. (source 1)
- [Reported] Controls can remove write access, require human approval or stop an agent as risk rises. (source 2,3)
- [Reported] Detection grows from 25 to 60 agent types, including Claude Code, Codex and GitHub Copilot. (source 2,3)
- [Confirmed] Guardian Agents in Project Perception investigate risk changes. (source 1)
- [Unconfirmed] Features are in private preview with broader availability planned around Ignite. (source 3)
- [Not known] Pricing for the new controls.

## Sources

1. [Official Microsoft Blog: Securing the agentic insider](https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/10/19/securing-the-agentic-insider/) — official
2. [SiliconANGLE: Microsoft targets the agentic insider with new controls for rogue AI agents](https://siliconangle.com/2026/10/19/microsoft-targets-the-agentic-insider-with-new-controls-for-rogue-ai-agents/)
3. [GeekWire: Microsoft unveils tools to monitor and corral rogue AI agents](https://www.geekwire.com/2026/microsoft-unveils-tools-to-monitor-and-corral-rogue-ai-agents/)