By Aisha Down
Publication Date: 2026-03-20 06:00:00
An AI agent directed an engineer to take actions that leaked a large amount of Meta’s sensitive data to some of his employees – the latest example of AI causing turmoil at a major tech company.
The leak, confirmed by Meta, arose when an employee asked for advice on a technical issue in an internal forum. An AI agent responded with a solution that the employee implemented – resulting in a large amount of sensitive user and company data being exposed to its engineers for two hours.
“No user data was mishandled,” said a Meta spokesperson, emphasizing that even a human can give incorrect advice. The incident, first reported by The Information, triggered a major internal security alert at Meta, which the company said was a sign of how seriously it takes data privacy.
This breach is one of several recent high-profile incidents caused by the increasing use of AI agents in US technology companies. Last month there was a report in the Financial Times…