Smplify, a new device management vendor, is developing a control layer between AI agents and enterprise device fleets. The company has announced $1 million in pre-seed funding and offers a headless platform whose capabilities are accessible through an API and command-line interface, allowing IT teams to use it within their existing tools.
Ben Greiner, Smplify’s co-founder and chief operating officer, said traditional device management still assumes that a person is monitoring activity. As scripts, automation pipelines and AI agents increasingly act on devices at machine speed, organizations need ways to limit, review and audit those actions.
The company was founded by Greiner and Preetham Gurram. Gurram has worked at MobileIron, SOTI, Automox, Addigy and Scalefusion, as well as at Apple, where he contributed to core mobile device management platforms and large-scale zero-touch enrollment.
Smplify’s model is based on establishing permissions and approval points for automated changes. An AI agent can identify a problem and propose a fix, but potentially risky actions can be held for human approval before being applied. The platform records who requested a change, its intended purpose and the person or policy that approved it.
Greiner described this function as a “last-mile control plane”: a final checkpoint between an agent’s decision and what happens on a device. The goal is to reduce the consequences of erroneous instructions, hallucinated solutions or overly broad permissions, including changes that could affect large numbers of laptops before administrators notice.
The company’s approach comes as organizations adopt AI agents faster than they establish governance systems. The source article cites a 2026 OneTrust report finding that 87% of organizations encourage the use of AI agents, while 47% have clear governance and controls. It also cites a Gartner prediction that 40% of enterprises will demote or decommission autonomous AI agents by 2027 because of governance gaps discovered after incidents.
Smplify’s platform is designed to manage devices using their native protocols, including Apple’s Declarative Device Management. Administrators define the desired state of their devices, and the system detects when a device drifts from that intent because of a changed setting or a missed update. Depending on the configured rules, it can restore the state automatically or request administrator approval.
The service also incorporates ideas associated with GitOps, such as versioned intent, review, approval and a complete history of changes. Greiner said this discipline is built into Smplify rather than requiring IT teams to assemble it through additional management layers.
The company also sees its API-first design as an opportunity for software vendors to include device management inside their own products and offer it under their own brands. This would allow those companies to use Smplify’s capabilities while presenting device management as part of their existing services.
Sources: Computerworld.