Shadow AI Agents Multiply Across Asia Pacific Firms
Forrester's 2027 forecast warns that unsanctioned employee-built agents will outpace approved tools, a challenge still at the forecast stage.
Updated on Nov. 6, 2026 in Artificial Intelligence
Live Poll
Do you trust your employer to keep AI tools used at work secure?
Forrester's 2027 Asia Pacific predictions report forecasts rising shadow AI across the region, as employee-built agents, embedded software features and business-funded experiments spread outside central IT oversight. This is a forecast from an analyst report, not a shipped product or measured result.
Why it matters
As AI tools spread across business units, software products and employee workflows, companies face a governance gap in which agents may be built or adopted without approval from technology, risk or compliance functions. The report frames this as a form of AI-driven technical debt, arising because Asia Pacific markets have differing regulatory systems and AI maturity levels.
The report is a predictions document, so its figures are forecasts rather than measured counts. Forrester projects that one in three large enterprises will uncover at least 10 employee-built shadow agents for each sanctioned agent, and that one in five large regulated enterprises will approve Chinese open-weight models; the baseline and methodology behind these numbers are not provided.
The players
Forrester
Forrester is a technology research and advisory firm that publishes annual market predictions for enterprise technology trends.
The details
Shadow AI refers to AI agents and tools that teams build or adopt without going through central approval, meaning the software is running outside the formal IT and compliance process. Personal agents may gain access to corporate devices, credentials and data while performing work-related tasks, which is how unmanaged tools can reach sensitive systems. The report describes the resulting unmanaged risk, weaker governance, duplicated tools and undocumented dependencies as technical debt that accumulates over time.
Timeline
Forrester published its 2027 Asia Pacific predictions report on November 6, 2026.
The forecast period covers 2027, when the governance challenges are expected to intensify.
The Tech Race
Forrester's report continues its annual predictions series, which has tracked enterprise AI adoption as a leading technology trend. The forecast shifts attention from how quickly companies adopt AI to whether they can govern the tools their employees are already using.
Employees across the region may already be using personal AI agents that reach corporate devices and data without approval from IT or compliance teams. Companies in regulated industries will need to determine which of these tools are running inside their networks before they can set governance rules.
The takeaway
Watch whether companies in the region begin publishing inventories of AI agents and approval processes for employee-built tools over the coming year. The forecast that one in five large regulated enterprises will approve Chinese open-weight models will be a useful test of how governance decisions actually play out.
Further reading
For broader context on how these tools are reshaping business operations, explore our Artificial Intelligence coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by SecurityBrief Asia.
Live Poll
Do you trust your employer to keep AI tools used at work secure?
