Enterprises define mandatory controls for autonomous AI systems as ONUG invites vendors to demonstrate solutions to protect against rogue AI agents

NAPLES, FL, UNITED STATES, March 18, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Open Networking User Group (ONUG), the enterprise IT community driving the future of AI-enabled infrastructure, today announced The ONUG Agentic Challenge, a call to action for the technology industry’s AI vendors and solution providers to demonstrate how their platforms can secure the emerging Agentic AI enterprise environment.

Before enterprises move from AI experimentation toward deployment of autonomous AI agents, a new set of security controls and operational challenges need to be addressed. Autonomous agents can now make API calls, access enterprise databases, invoke tools, and communicate with other agents, all at machine speed and often without human oversight.

Yet no security standard and controls currently exist to govern these systems.

Traditional enterprise protections were designed to secure human users, not autonomous software agents operating across complex trust boundaries.
To address this gap, ONUG convened its Agentic AI Overlay Working Group, comprising all ONUG Board members plus a coalition of enterprise technology leaders from organizations including eBay, Cigna, Indeed, and Kraken. Together, the group has identified a set of mandatory protections and controls required to safely deploy multi-agent systems inside large enterprises and across trust domains.

These protections are called the Agentic Overlay Mandatory Controls (AOMC) and are a set of enterprise-driven security controls designed to defend against rogue AI agents and secure autonomous AI systems.

“These controls represent the voice of the enterprise,” said Nick Lippis, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of ONUG. “Our members seek to deploy AI agents inside production environments, but the existing security stack was never designed for this. You can view the challenge here: https://github.com/onug/AOMC-demo.”

“The Agentic Challenge invites the industry to demonstrate how their solutions will enable enterprises to operate safely in an agent-driven economy,” said Lippis. “The above GitHub repo contains code you can fork to develop your response to the challenge.”

To bring these risks to life, ONUG has built a live infrastructure demonstration that simulates a rogue AI agent attack sequence inside an enterprise environment. The demo shows how malicious agents can exploit gaps in today’s infrastructure and highlights the critical role of the AOMC controls in stopping these attacks.

The demonstration will debut during the AI Networking Summit, taking place May 13–14 in Frisco | Dallas, where Lippis will open the conference with a keynote presentation showcasing the live rogue-agent scenario; that is the challenge.

Through the ONUG Agentic Challenge, vendors are invited to demonstrate how their technologies address one or more of the AOMC controls within the live environment. Participating vendors will have the opportunity to showcase their solutions to an audience of enterprise IT leaders actively building AI-ready infrastructure.

In addition, vendors participating in the challenge will be eligible for the ONUG Agentic AI Overlay Award, recognizing the most impactful solutions that enable enterprises to securely deploy agentic AI systems.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for the vendor community,” said Joann Varello, CMO of ONUG. “Enterprises are urgently looking for guidance on how to secure agentic AI environments. The Agentic Challenge creates a forum where vendors can demonstrate real solutions to real enterprise problems and where IT leaders can see firsthand how the market is evolving to support the next generation of AI infrastructure.”
Vendors interested in submitting a demonstration as part of the ONUG Agentic Challenge may register their intent here:
https://github.com/onug/AOMC-demo/issues/new/choose

The ONUG Agentic Challenge represents a critical step toward defining the security architecture required for the Agentic AI era, ensuring enterprises can confidently move from experimentation to full AI deployment.

About ONUG
ONUG is a collaborative community of Global 2000 enterprise IT leaders and technology providers focused on shaping the future of enterprise infrastructure. Through working groups, collaborative initiatives, and its AI Networking Summit events, ONUG helps enterprises build secure, scalable, and AI-ready infrastructure to support next-generation digital innovation.
Learn more at https://onug.net

William Sell
ONUG LLC
+1 508-596-6118
email us here

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