Are We Still Holding the Wheel? A Security Manager's Reflection on the Agentic Shift

I recently read a powerful and thought-provoking post by a respected colleague of mine, Irfan Ahmed , titled “The End of the Tech World… When Everything Became an Agent.” It was more than a commentary on AI, it was a quiet observation on how technology didn’t evolve with a splash, but with a handoff. A transition so subtle, most of us didn’t notice when our tools started acting for us.

“The coders lost control. The CEOs took counsel from their own digital boardroom.And the engineers? They were no longer building tools. They were raising successors."

That line stopped me in my tracks.

As someone who manages a Security Operations Center, the shift Irfan describes doesn’t feel abstract. It feels imminent, in some cases, already here. Our tools are no longer just assisting. They’re deciding.

Think about what we’re seeing:

• Email triage tools that interpret tone and urgency.

• Endpoint agents that isolate threats autonomously.

• AI copilots that write code, file tickets, or even recommend org changes.

These aren't passive utilities. They're active participants in our workflows, goal-driven, reasoning, and increasingly opaque.

As a security leader, that presents both opportunity and risk:

• Are we building governance as fast as we're adopting autonomy?

• Are our safeguards keeping up with the systems we're no longer hand-coding?

• And if AI agents now act with delegated authority, who is watching the watchers?

Because while Irfan asked the right question......

“Have we already crossed that threshold?” - I think in security, we need to ask an even sharper one: What happens when the steering wheel disappears… and we didn’t notice it was gone?

This isn’t just a transition of technology. It’s a transition of trust. And we, the builders and defenders, aren’t just raising successors, we’re designing the boundaries of their autonomy.

Big thanks to Irfan Ahmed for sparking this reflection. Your words gave voice to a quiet revolution many of us are living through.