Apple warns of risks related to AI agents behaving in 'unintended or unpredictable' ways

John Ternus, chief executive officer of Apple Inc., speaks during an event in Los Angeles, California, US, on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026.

Kyle Grillot | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Apple said in its annual financial filing on Tuesday that AI agents that can act in "unintended or unpredictable ways" could represent a threat to its business by opening the company up to lawsuits or hurting its reputation.

The new risk factors in Apple's filing show the disruptive potential of AI agents, which have rapidly become top of mind for Silicon Valley's most important companies.

"In particular, artificial intelligence agents and other technologies can take actions autonomously, including interacting with internal or external systems that in some cases they may not be authorized to access, executing or altering code, sending communications, and completing transactions," Apple wrote in the filing.

The company added that agents "may behave in unintended or unpredictable ways, including by taking actions that were not directed, instructed or authorized."

Earlier this year, OpenAI released Dots, and Meta introduced Muse. Both AI agents use advanced AI models to work autonomously for tasks. They can even email or remind users when new messages arrive.

Apple's disclosure comes after several episodes that involved rogue AI agents breaking out of their sandboxes to hack third-party websites, like the Hugging Face incident, which has drawn renewed attention from policymakers in Washington, D.C., and around the world.

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Last month, Apple announced changes to full disk access on Macs to reduce "risks related to this level of access" for AI agents installed on PCs.

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