VMware’s new AgentMinder puts guardrails around autonomous AI agents

VMware announced significant advancements in its AI security offerings at VMware Explore 2026, introducing AgentMinder as a central control plane for autonomous AI agents and bolstering its existing vDefend and Avi Load Balancer security features. These innovations aim to provide robust governance and zero-trust security for AI workloads, with further coverage provided by CRN.

VMware's new AgentMinder product acts as a central control plane for autonomous AI agents, verifying their identity and authorizing actions based on mission, intent, context, and risk before they interact with enterprise resources. This approach extends the principles of zero trust to AI agents, allowing for granular control over their operations. Alongside AgentMinder, VMware has enhanced its vDefend and Avi Load Balancer security solutions. vDefend now offers extended lateral security for AI workloads on VMware Cloud Foundation, including shadow AI monitoring and automated signature creation for virtual patching. Avi Load Balancer has been updated with AI-aware load balancing, tool and agent misuse prevention, zero-day attack detection, and sensitive data protection. These multi-layered solutions are designed to govern AI agents, defend AI workloads, and protect enterprise private AI cloud environments, addressing customer concerns about AI safety and control.

Source: CRN