Agentic AI has Arrived on Employee Mobile Devices

Compliance Teams Need Visibility—Now

Agentic Artificial Intelligence is evolving at a blistering pace, and so are the risks that come with it. The latest generation of agentic AI mobile apps can connect to corporate systems, collect data, and make autonomous decisions with minimal human intervention. They aren’t science fiction—they’re already on personal and business devices today, ranging from consumer convenience tools to enterprise-grade assistants. 

A recent Lookout analysis of millions of mobile devices within our global customer base revealed a startling fact: thousands of agentic AI mobile apps are already in active use. These apps span both iOS and Android platforms and are present across all major industries. The findings emphasize a rapidly expanding trend – agentic AI is now firmly integrated into the enterprise mobile ecosystem.

Across a range of use cases, from executive productivity to sales enablement, finance, and expense management, agentic mobile AI apps raise significant privacy and security concerns. Since they can access sensitive personal or corporate data—such as email content, calendars, account credentials, purchase histories, or internal systems—there’s a risk of data leaks, unintended actions, or misuse if permissions are too broad, not well-controlled, or if the underlying models behave unpredictably. Ensuring clear consent, strong access controls, and continuous monitoring is vital to reduce these risks as agentic AI becomes more integrated into mobile technology experiences. 

The Compliance Gap: AI Is Now an Invisible Actor

For Compliance, Risk, and Governance leaders, this isn’t just another technology trend. It’s an urgent visibility gap that undermines core obligations under frameworks like ISO 42001, the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI RMF), and internal AI governance policies. If you cannot see agentic AI operating within your organization, you cannot govern it.

Traditional AI governance emphasizes the models an organization develops or purchases. However, agentic AI mobile apps change the landscape dramatically:

• They run on mobile devices—not inside your corporate environment.
• They interact with enterprise apps, data, and APIs.
• They make autonomous decisions and take actions on behalf of the user.
• They often bypass IT and security review entirely.
• They evolve rapidly, updating capabilities in days, not months.

In other words, Shadow AI is now mobile, personal, and highly capable.  When employees use these apps for work without official IT approval—even with good intentions—compliance teams lose visibility into:

• What data is being used — and by whom
• How the data is being accessed
• Where that data is going
• What decisions the AI is making
• Whether the organization is exposed to legal, regulatory, or contractual risks

This is incompatible with every modern AI governance standard.

ISO 42001 Raises the Bar—And Most Organizations Aren’t Ready

Highly regulated industries such as financial services, healthcare, telecom, defense, and critical infrastructure are increasingly demanding compliance with ISO 42001 (AI Management System) throughout their supply chains, including software vendors, cloud providers, SaaS platforms, and managed service partners that develop, embed, or operate AI systems. This shift is driven by a combination of regulatory pressure, risk management, and procurement discipline.

As a result, procurement and third-party risk programs are beginning to require suppliers to demonstrate a formal AI governance framework that covers AI system inventory, risk assessment, data usage, human oversight, incident response, and lifecycle management. ISO 42001 offers a standardized, auditable way to show that AI risks are systematically identified, controlled, and continuously monitored—similar to how ISO 27001 became mandatory for information security. ISO 42001 requires organizations to:

• Identify and inventory AI systems.
• Assess and mitigate AI-related risks.
• Ensure transparency and traceability.
• Maintain oversight and human control.
• Protect sensitive data accessed by AI systems.
• Continuously monitor AI-driven behavior.

But here’s the catch: these requirements cannot be met if agentic AI mobile apps run on employee devices without organizational awareness. A compliance framework is only as strong as its visibility. When AI operates invisibly, it remains unmanaged—and unmanaged AI ultimately results in non-compliance.

Agentic AI on Mobile Expands the Enterprise Risk Surface

Unlike traditional applications, agentic AI mobile apps:

• Request Deep Device Permissions: Contacts, photos, microphone, clipboard, network access—often far beyond what is necessary.
• Bypass Identity and Zero Trust Controls: Most corporate policies govern users, not autonomous AI acting on their behalf.
• Introduce Data Leakage and Legal Exposure: Customer data, employee information, intellectual property, and regulated data may all be processed by external AI foundation models, increasing enterprise risk
• Create Actionable Governance Blind Spots: You cannot enforce human-in-the-loop oversight if the “loop” is invisible.

This is no longer a hypothetical risk. It is already happening across industries.

Call to Action: Compliance Teams Must Demand Mobile AI Visibility

Security teams alone cannot solve this problem. Agentic AI apps fall squarely within the scope of Compliance, Risk, and Governance, because the consequences of unmanaged AI include:

• Violations of ISO 42001, NIST AI RMF, GDPR, HIPAA, and contractual AI restrictions.
• Breaches of confidentiality obligations with customers and partners.
• Loss of AI auditability and traceability.
• Unreviewed AI systems operating within regulated workflows.
• Heightened legal liability during investigations or incidents.

The solution starts with a simple first step: demand visibility. Compliance teams need to collaborate with IT and Security to implement mobile security platforms—such as Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security—that can: 

• Discover and inventory agentic AI apps on iOS and Android.
• Assess app risk, permissions, and data access pathways.
• Monitor behavioral anomalies and unauthorized connections.
• Enforce policies before data leaves the device.
• Provide auditable evidence for AI governance frameworks.
• Protect sensitive data in BYOD and hybrid environments.

Lookout continuously monitors mobile applications for embedded AI frameworks, autonomous behaviors, risky permissions, and network activity, enabling organizations to understand which AI-driven apps are in use, what data they can access, and whether those behaviors comply with policies and regulations. This visibility helps Compliance teams shift from assumptions to evidence—filling the AI visibility gap and laying the foundation for governance frameworks such as ISO 42001 and the NIST AI RMF.  Without these capabilities, Compliance remains blind to the single fastest-growing risk surface in the enterprise.

AI Governance Begins with Mobile App Intelligence

Agentic AI is not waiting for organizations to catch up. It’s already shaping workflows, influencing decisions, and interacting with corporate data—often without any oversight.  Compliance leaders now have a responsibility to:

• Treat agentic AI mobile apps as AI systems under governance.
• Require enterprise-wide visibility into mobile AI behavior.
• Update policies and controls to include mobile-native AI.
• Partner with Security to deploy technology that enforces compliance.
• Ensure that no AI system—human-controlled or autonomous—operates outside approved boundaries.

Governance Ends Where Visibility Stops

You can’t control what you can’t see—and in the age of agentic AI, visibility into mobile devices is no longer a security enhancement, but a compliance requirement. This is the moment for Compliance teams to lead by closing the AI visibility gap and demanding solutions like Lookout Mobile Endpoint Security that illuminate and protect the fastest-growing risk surface in the enterprise: agentic AI operating on employee devices.

The organizations that move now will not only protect their data—they will demonstrate AI maturity, earn trust, and strengthen their regulatory posture.