Types of AI Guardrails and When to Use Them (2026)
The types of AI guardrails are input guardrails, output guardrails, security guardrails, ethical guardrails, and operational guardrails, each positioned at a different failure point across an inference pipeline. Gartner’s research found that 30% of generative AI projects don’t survive past the proof-of-concept stage, with weak risk controls cited as the leading reason. Most of those projects weren’t badly built. The models worked. The gaps were in what sat around them.