Despite billions in enterprise investment, over 85% of AI projects never make it to production. Operant Networks announced the launch of its Secure AI Sandbox for Model Context Protocol (MCP), a first-of-its-kind platform that helps teams move beyond proof-of-concept (POC) by answering not just what AI can do, but how it can be securely and economically deployed at scale.

Most AI efforts succeed in lab testing, showing what models can do but stall when it’s time to integrate into real environments. Challenges like securing MCP connections, meeting compliance requirements, managing agent identity, and calculating operational costs often block the path forward. Without this “missing pilot layer,” organizations can’t accurately assess ROI.

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Operant’s Secure MCP Sandbox solves this by creating a secure, policy-driven environment for testing AI workflows that use MCP with real data, authentication, and enterprise-grade trust controls before committing to production. In addition to hardening MCP with zero-trust security, the sandbox also makes it faster and easier to set up and use, reducing the friction that often slows AI adoption.

“A POC proves what’s possible. A pilot proves what’s practical,” said Keith Rose, CEO of Operant Networks. “The Secure Sandbox gives AI teams the ability to connect MCP clients and servers with guardrails, test against real security and compliance policies, and understand the true cost and risk before going live – all while removing the setup complexity that holds so many projects back.”

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Key features include:

  • Simulated trust flows for AI agents using Model Context Protocol (MCP)
  • Fine-grained identity and access policies across teams, clouds, and domains
  • Data privacy enforcement to protect sensitive data (coming soon)
  • Full logging and audit trails to support compliance and governance

Unlike AI playgrounds, Operant’s platform is purpose-built for operational testing, helping teams uncover integration complexity, policy gaps, and security costs early. It also serves as the on-ramp to Operant’s Multi-Part Trust (MPT) platform, a production-ready zero-trust control plane that reuses the same trust architecture defined in the sandbox.

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