Agent governance is the new battleground for iPaaS vendors

September 2026 was the month the iPaaS vendors agreed on what comes next. Within three weeks, Boomi shipped its quarterly release with new Agent Control Tower features (12 September), MuleSoft launched Agent Fabric at Dreamforce (16 September), and Workato launched AIRO and an enterprise AI control plane at World of Workato (23 September). The vocabulary differs. The message is the same: the integration platform should be where AI agents are registered, governed and connected to business systems.

What they have in common

Put the announcements side by side and the same building blocks appear:

Capability	MuleSoft	Workato	Boomi
Register of agents	Agent Registry and Scanners	AI Registry	Agent Control Tower
Agents from other platforms	Yes, “wherever built”	Yes, “built on Workato or elsewhere”	Claude Managed Agents natively, more coming
Testing agent behaviour	Agent Evals	Agent Evals	Test panel, runtime metrics coming
Gateway for AI traffic	Omni Gateway, AI Gateway	AI Gateway (model, MCP, agent, API)	API management with MCP registry
Model routing and cost	Yes	Model Gateway	Bring your own model (coming)
Business context for agents	Via APIs and integrations	Live Process Graph	Meta Hub glossary, Knowledge Hub

The table is based on the vendors’ own announcements and does not say anything about maturity. Some of these capabilities are generally available, some are in preview, and some are announced as coming.

Why now

Two things drive this. First, agent sprawl: large organisations now have agents in Salesforce, Microsoft 365, ServiceNow, SaaS products and their own code, with no common overview. Second, weak returns: MuleSoft cites a McKinsey figure that 94% of enterprises are not getting strong returns on AI investments. Governance, context and connection to real systems are the vendors’ answer.

Integration platforms are well placed to take this role. They already sit between systems, hold credentials, handle errors and log traffic. Adding agents as a new kind of participant is a natural extension.

Where they differ

• MuleSoft builds from API management. The strength is policy enforcement at the gateway, and the tie-in to Salesforce and Agentforce.
• Workato builds from the user experience and process context. The strength is AIRO as one front door, and the idea that agents need to understand the process, not just the API.
• Boomi builds from data and metadata. The strength is combining integration with master data, a business glossary and managed RAG.
• Microsoft is not in the same cycle, but offers much of the same through Logic Apps, API Management and Foundry, and it is the obvious alternative for Azure customers.

How to compare them

1. Ask what is generally available today, not what is on the roadmap.
2. Test with an agent that was not built on the vendor’s platform. That is where the “neutral control plane” promise is tested.
3. Check enforcement, not just registration. A register is documentation. A gateway that blocks is control.
4. Look at how evals fit your release process. Agent testing should be part of how changes go to production.
5. Ask about exit. Can registry data, policies and evals be exported if you change vendor?

Agent governance will probably become a standard part of iPaaS within a year or two, just like API management did. The choice you make now is less about features and more about which architecture you want to build on.