A new report reveals an increasing trust gap between businesses deploying agentic AI for external communications and consumers wary of sharing personal information due to security concerns.
The research, carried out by Censuswide for Salt Security, also warns that without proper API discovery, governance and security, the very technology meant to drive smarter customer engagement could open the door to cybersecurity issues including attacks or data leakage.
Over half (53 percent) of organizations using agentic AI say they are already deploying it, or plan to, for customer-facing roles. 48 percent currently use between six and 20 types of AI agents and 19 percent deploy between 21 and 50; 37 percent of organizations report that one to 100 AI agents are currently active within their systems; and almost a fifth (18 percent) host between 501–1000 agents.
However, despite using the technology only 32 percent say they conduct daily API risk assessments and just 37 percent have a dedicated API security solution. The same percentage have a dedicated data privacy team overseeing AI initiatives.
On the consumer side 64 percent have interacted with AI chatbots more frequently in the past year, and 80 percent of those have shared personal information during these interactions. Indeed 44 percent say they’ve felt pressured to share information just to complete a task.
Only 22 percent of consumers are comfortable sharing data with AI agents though, compared to 37 percent who trust interactions over the phone and 54 percent in person.
“Agentic AI is changing the way businesses operate, but consumers are clearly signaling a lack of confidence,” says Michael Callahan, CMO at Salt Security. “What many organizations overlook is that the safety and success of AI depends on APIs that power it and they must be effectively discovered, governed and secured. Otherwise, the trust gap will widen, and the risks will escalate.”
You can get the full report, which includes recommended security actions, from the Salt site.
Image Credit: Twoapril Studio/Dreamstime.com
