As we spoke about in our first blog of the series (The Ghosts in Your Tenant: Why Orphaned Agents Matter More Than You Think), ownerless agents carry significant security, compliance, governance and operational risks for organizations. The second blog in the series (Agent Cleanup: Microsoft’s Lifecycle Controls for Orphaned Agents) explains Microsoft’s new lifecycle controls for orphaned agents to make managing and governing these agents easier. These posts have highlighted why this issue matters now more than ever: with AI agents becoming embedded across workflows, leaving them unmanaged can have far-reaching consequences.

As a result of these controls, organizations can build user trust and robust governance in the era of AI agents. This isn’t just a technical improvement — it’s a cultural and operational shift. When people across an organization know that the agents they create are tracked, owned and responsibly managed, they are more willing to experiment, automate, and collaborate without fear of hidden risk.

Building Trust

When employees build agents within a company, they are gaining rapid access to organizational data. Every agent that is an orphan represents security, compliance, governance and operational risks. Without clear ownership, permissions can linger, processes can break, and sensitive information can remain exposed. Over time, even a small number of orphaned agents can create blind spots that auditors, security teams, and leadership may struggle to explain.

Consider the scenario of Dalton creating an agent at her workplace to help her with strategy implementation or playbook deployment. Her manager needs assurance that if she leaves her role for a new job, the agent’s owner is updated to avoid a potential security breach leading to unauthorized access to sensitive data. In large organizations with hundreds or thousands of agents, this scenario repeats constantly. People change teams, roles evolve and contractors finish their assignments. Lifecycle controls provide a repeatable way to transfer or remove ownership and avoid these gaps before they turn into incidents.

That’s why lifecycle management isn’t just about ticking a compliance box – it’s about building trust. Employees feel safer creating useful agents, and managers know they’re not inheriting hidden liabilities. Trust like this underpins a healthy innovation culture.