AWS Launches Agent Registry to Tackle ‘Agent Sprawl’ in Enterprise AI

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has introduced AWS Agent Registry in preview, a new service to help enterprises manage, discover, and govern AI agents at scale.

Available through Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, the registry acts as a centralised catalog for AI agents, tools, and related resources across an organisation’s entire technology stack.

"It gives organisations a centralised way to discover, share, and govern agents across teams so builders can reuse what’s already been created instead of starting from scratch," Matt Garman, AWS CEO, said.

The launch addresses a growing challenge for companies deploying hundreds or even thousands of AI agents, often across multiple cloud platforms and on-premises systems, which AWS describes as “agent sprawl.”

The registry enables teams to discover existing agents, reuse capabilities, and avoid duplicating work. It also introduces governance controls, allowing administrators to define who can publish or access agents, with built-in approval workflows before assets become widely available.

AWS Agent Registry stores structured metadata about each agent, including ownership, capabilities, and usage protocols. It supports interoperability standards such as Model Context Protocol (MCP) and agent-to-agent communication, while also allowing custom schemas tailored to enterprise needs.

Developers can access the registry through a console interface, APIs, or directly from development environments, with search capabilities powered by both keyword and semantic queries. The system also integrates audit and compliance tracking via AWS CloudTrail.

By providing visibility and lifecycle management, from development to deployment and retirement, AWS aims to streamline AI agent operations and improve efficiency across organisations.

"Companies like Sony are using this to enable reuse of agent patterns across business units. Southwest Airlines is focused on preventing agent sprawl and establishing governance from day one. PepsiCo and Mitsubishi Electric are looking to give developers a single place to discover and trust what they build against," Garman added.

"AWS Agent Registry in AgentCore solves the critical discoverability challenge— enabling teams to find and reuse existing agents instead of rebuilding capabilities from scratch. With managed governance across multiple platforms, every agent carries standardised ownership metadata and policy enforcement.

"This will prevent agent sprawl across the organisation while establishing the foundation for scaling thousands of agents with enterprise-grade governance from day one," Justin Bundick, Southwest Airlines VP, AI and Intelligent Platforms, said.

The preview version of AWS Agent Registry is currently available in select regions, including the U.S., Europe, and Asia-Pacific.