The Control Point for AI Agents is Moving to Runtime

AI agents no longer just generate text. They call tools, request credentials, query data, invoke APIs, and trigger workflows, and they do it at machine speed. In this report, Software Analyst Cyber Research defines ARISE, Agentic Runtime Identity Security Enforcement, as the runtime enforcement layer for agents in motion: the layer that evaluates whether a live agent action still makes sense before that action completes. SACR profiles 14 vendors against the framework and assesses Britive ARC™ across each of its three control layers.

What the Report Covers:

• A new control layer, defined. Why identity governance, privileged access, and gateway controls remain necessary but were never designed to decide whether a live agent action should continue at the moment of execution
• The maturity bar for production agents. SACR's control depth model, and why inline intervention before an action completes is named the minimum threshold for agents touching sensitive data or critical workflows
• How the market is organizing. Six vendor patterns across 14 profiled vendors, and where identity-first runtime governance fits against AI gateways, posture tools, and behavior analytics
• An independent assessment of Britive ARC™. Alignment across all three ARISE layers, ratings across agent identity and delegation, runtime enforcement, tool governance, evidence, and credential issuance, plus where the analysts see the strongest differentiation