Okta's CEO on Defending Against Runaway AI Agents: A Kill Switch for the Era of 47.5% Unauthorized 'Shadow AI' Use

Todd McKinnon, co-founder and CEO of identity management company Okta, made his second visit to Japan and remarked on the intense interest in AI and industry trends he encountered. Okta was among the first companies granted access to Anthropic's Claude Mythos, drawn by its dramatically faster ability to find security vulnerabilities compared to anything before it -- and moved immediately to evaluate it for the safety of their own software and customers. At the same time, in conversations with Japanese companies and security professionals, he's noticed the industry partly misunderstands what this technology actually means.

Every technology -- operating systems, websites, the business systems companies build for customers and employees -- is inevitably transforming into something agentic, McKinnon says, but we're still early in that transformation. He compares it to the early days of the web, when a handful of simple sites existed with just a phone number and a logo. Many vendors already offer simple AI agents today, but over the next two to three years, those agents will be connected to far more of a company's data, eventually understanding a customer's purchase history and past support interactions.

Against the unpredictable risk of a runaway AI agent, Okta built a 'kill switch' as a defensive line. When a problem is detected somewhere in the system, a central control system severs the connection between the agent and the system -- blocking further reads or writes and effectively neutralizing the agent. It can be triggered manually or automatically based on risk detection from other security products, and Okta is positioned to offer it precisely because it centrally manages all the connections.

McKinnon closes by emphasizing that those most open to change, most willing to adapt, are the ones who survive. What companies should do now is make 'no-regrets' investments -- connecting systems together and gaining visibility -- so they're well-positioned no matter how the market evolves.