Vendors in 2026 sold an “Agentic OS”: not Windows for robots, but an operating layer between human intent and enterprise systems — context, policy, tools, audit.

Without that layer each team builds a shadow agent and spreads access and cost risk. With it, onboarding an agent looks like onboarding any controlled enterprise service.

In every vendor demo demand a one-page requirement: SSO, tool allowlist, approval hooks, immutable logs.

If the vendor only shows a language model and never the control plane, it is not an operations product yet.

Manager action: Draft a one-page agent-runtime requirement: SSO, tool allowlist, approval hooks, immutable logs. Use it in every vendor demo.