Companies deploying AI agents have ‘no idea how to manage risk,’ AI safety expert warns

Business leaders are accelerating the deployment of agentic artificial intelligence with “no idea how to manage risk,” an AI safety expert warned yesterday. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) partner and managing director Steven Mills, the firm’s chief AI ethics officer, warned that companies are moving into agentic AI too quickly and without adequate controls—potentially leading to serious consequences for their businesses. “The desire to move fast on AI without putting appropriate risk management in place can result in a system lapse or use cases being deployed in areas with strong regulatory requirements that organizations are unprepared for,” he wrote in a blog post. Under tremendous pressure to show AI-driven productivity gains, many business leaders have told Mills that their risk management programs are “cumbersome and slow” and can’t keep up “in a world that’s trying to scale AI at an exponential rate.” Mills says the stakes are high for firms that take unnecessary risks. “Get governance wrong and every bit of value you’ve built with experimentation and early wins could unravel because of a single incident,” he writes. The blog post came a day after Anthropic researcher Jacob C…