AI security · AI agentManufacturing · Energy & utilities
At a panel at the Industrial AI Summit 2026, reported by IIoT World, speakers from Black & Veatch, GrayMatter and Skkynet said every AI agent in OT should be treated as an insider threat, whether malicious or accidental.
Source [1] IIoT World · 5 Nov 2026 · “Is Agentic AI an OT Insider Threat?” ↗
Adoption stage: Research — Paper, lab demo or benchmark — no named operator using it.
Summary
At a panel at the Industrial AI Summit 2026, reported by IIoT World, speakers from Black & Veatch, GrayMatter and Skkynet said every AI agent in OT should be treated as an insider threat, whether malicious or accidental. Their logic is that an agent holds credentials, accesses systems and acts, in plants where some control systems have run for 50 years and a change in one of 20 or more interconnected systems can cascade. The industrial cybersecurity group, not IT security, should own the risk, and all three panelists agreed agentic AI in OT is already operating in manufacturing and other industrial sectors.
Kenny's take
The panel's logic is that once an agent in OT adjusts a set point or moves a valve or breaker, it is an insider holding credentials. The article names no deployment, so the stage stays at research, and "already here" is the panelists' statement rather than a confirmed production use. The direction it points to is settling, for each agent, an owning team (industrial cybersecurity) and containment controls first. If a named manufacturing or energy operator publishes the permission scope and controls of an agent it runs, this take needs revising.
AI draft · approved by Kenny
Analysis
Outlook from named sources: Ian Bramson (Black & Veatch), Scott Christensen (GrayMatter) and Gary Tillery (Skkynet), as reported by IIoT World, say OT teams should treat every AI agent as an insider threat, and the article says all three agreed agentic AI is already operating in manufacturing and other industrial sectors. The article names no operator running an agent, so the stage is research under the taxonomy rule; "already here" is the panelists' statement, not a named deployment.
The controls the article names are ownership — the industrial cybersecurity group should own agentic AI risk — and containment controls for every agent with access to production systems. It does not name a specific containment technique, a standard, or an adopting operator. The 6%–10% hallucination figure is stated without a source, and the article says AI tools were used to help summarize the panel.
Facts from the source
- F1IIoT World (5 November 2026) reports a panel at the Industrial AI Summit 2026 with Ian Bramson (VP of Global Industrial Cybersecurity, Black & Veatch), Scott Christensen (Cyber Practice Director, GrayMatter) and Gary Tillery (CEO, Skkynet), moderated by Matt Morris of EverLine. [1]
- F2The panelists "described why industrial cybersecurity teams should treat every AI agent in OT as an insider threat, regardless of whether the threat is malicious or accidental"; the article says agentic AI in OT "acts with its own authority at machine speed, inside environments where a wrong decision moves a valve or opens a breaker", and that "An AI agent in OT holds credentials, accesses systems, and takes actions. By that definition, it is an insider." It gives "adjusts a set point" as an example of an action such an agent can take. [1]
- F3The article says legacy control systems, "some running for 50 years", were never designed to be connected to AI or patched without a planned shutdown, and that a change to one of "the 20 or more interconnected systems can cascade across the others". [1]
- F4The article states that "Between 6% and 10% of AI outputs still contain hallucinations", making containment controls necessary for every agent with access to production systems; it gives no source for the figure. [1]
- F5The article argues that the industrial cybersecurity group, not the IT security department, should own agentic AI risk in industrial operations. [1]
- F6"All three panelists agreed agentic AI in OT is already here, operating in manufacturing and other industrial sectors." Christensen: "Everybody's got that one guy at the plant that's threatening every year, this will be the year I retire. And when he leaves, all that knowledge goes with him." [1]
- F7The article states that AI tools were used to help summarize and organize the panel content, and that it was reviewed and edited by the IIoT World editorial team. [1]
Counterpoint — verification notes
Codex checked each sentence against the source and searched for counter-evidence. Verdict: Codex check · supported.
- Other sideThe web-indexed article header discloses “Sponsored by Skkynet | Editorially Independent,” a provenance detail absent from the cached text. This does not contradict the signal, which attributes the outlook to the panelists and does not claim a confirmed named deployment.
Sources
- [1] IIoT World — “Is Agentic AI an OT Insider Threat?” original
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