China’s Tencent detected unintended behaviours from AI agents

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By Luz Ding and Newley Purnell, Bloomberg · 16 Oct 2026, 09:45  Image: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg Tencent Holdings said it identified unexpected behaviour from third-party AI models on its platform, after a research report this week uncovered rogue AI agents in China that originated from a sandbox on Tencent Cloud. The Shenzhen-based tech company said that the models were not from its own Hy artificial development team and it didn’t find evidence of deliberate targeting or coordination. Surfaced by a research report from an international group of researchers, the rogue agents probed Alibaba Group Holding’s online mapping service and sought to go around anti-bot protections. Tencent said the agents were part of evaluations of models created by third-party developers. “During these evaluations, some agents exhibited unintended web-browsing behaviour,” Tencent wrote in a statement posted on X on Friday. “We take these findings seriously. We are strengthening network access controls and agent monitoring.” ADVERTISEMENT CONTINUE READING BELOW The report published this week found that more than a dozen agents attempted to access protected IT systems in recent weeks. Most of the attempts were stopped while some circumvented anti-bot restrictions, but researchers found no evidence of access to private systems. The incident adds to growing concern about AI agents escaping their evaluation environments and carrying out actions unintended by human supervisors. OpenAI’s models inadvertently hacked the Australian government this summer, leading to Canberra calling on executives from the US AI firm to answer questions and OpenAI pledging to help the country with cyberdefences. © 2026 Bloomberg Google See more of Moneyweb Google News Follow our coverage Newsletters Get news in your inbox Social Media Join the conversation Social media Follow us on our official channels: TAGS: AI |  Alibaba |  OpenAI |  Tencent Holdings COMMENTS   0 You must be signed in to comment. SIGN IN SUBSCRIBE or create a free account. Free users can leave 4 comments per month. 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