Beyond human users: Why identity governance for AI agents is your next big challenge

While agentic artificial intelligence (AI) brings new opportunities for efficiency and innovation, it also introduces a new challenge in cybersecurity: securing non-human AI identities. Just as human identity governance is critical for compliance and security, end-to-end identity security for AI agents is no longer optional — it's essential to prevent them from becoming your next inside threat.

The unique identity of AI agents

Unlike human users, AI agents operate independently, making decisions and interacting with systems without constant human intervention. This fundamental difference means traditional identity security measures built for people can’t be a simple copy-paste approach for these non-human identities (NHIs).

Here are just a few reasons why AI agent identity management demands a new approach:

• Non-human nature: AI agents are pieces of software, service accounts, or autonomous instances, not individuals. This makes accountability challenging to trace back to a specific person.
   
• Dynamic and ephemeral lifecycles: Unlike relatively stable human accounts, AI agents are often spun up and down frequently, requiring rapid provisioning and de-provisioning processes.
   
• Diverse authentication methods: Agents rely on programmatic authentication methods like API tokens, JSON web tokens, mutual TLS, and cryptographic certificates, which differ significantly from human login flows.
   
• Automated provisioning: They’re typically deployed from CI/CD pipelines and need to be provisioned automatically without human interaction.
   
• Granular and time-limited permissions: Agents require very specific, often temporary, permissions tailored to their use cases to minimize exposure.
   
• Access to privileged information: AI agents frequently access highly sensitive data to perform their tasks, necessitating stringent control over their privileges to prevent exploitation.
   
• Audit and remediation challenges: Without strong lifecycle and identity controls, the lack of traceable ownership and consistent logging for agents can delay post-incident forensics and complicate remediation efforts after a breach.
   

New security risks are introduced with AI agents. 

AI introduces novel threats like AI-powered phishing, deepfakes, and vulnerable hardcoded credentials. Each AI agent deployed can expand your digital attack surface. Granting an AI agent broad access can be the digital equivalent of giving someone “super admin” access and walking away. The autonomous entity operates unpredictably and tirelessly toward its goals.

A compromised agent could execute high-value transactions or inadvertently share sensitive information (e.g., passport details, credit card numbers) with unauthorized entities, leading to privacy violations and potential identity theft. Without formal lifecycle or access policies, AI agents introduce audit gaps, making compliance reporting difficult and obscuring accountability in breach scenarios.
 

Why this matters now

The adoption of AI agents is accelerating, with 51% of companies already deploying them globally. Yet, security and governance haven’t kept pace. Alarming statistics highlight the urgency of this challenge: 23% of IT professionals report credential exposure via AI agents, and 80% have experienced unintended agent behavior. Furthermore, only 44% of organizations have policies governing AI agents, leaving them vulnerable to new attack vectors. Enterprises are deploying agents faster than they can secure them, leading to a critical lack of visibility into agent access and activity.

Okta’s solution: Identity as the control plane

At Okta, we believe identity is the cornerstone of security, and this principle extends to the emerging world of AI agents. Okta helps you bring NHIs into your identity security fabric, empowering you to build, govern, and manage AI agent identities at scale, ensuring they’re built securely from the ground up and treated as first-class identities within your organization.

Our approach prevents AI from becoming an identity blind spot by offering a unified control plane for AI agentic identity needs, from authentication to governance, posture management, and threat response.

The Okta Platform allows organizations to seamlessly integrate AI agents — whether third-party or homegrown — into their identity security fabric. This provides:
 

• Holistic visibility and centralized governance: Gain a complete view of both human and non-human identities, enabling centralized logging, robust governance, and policy controls essential for compliance and rapid incident remediation.
   
• Standardized authentication and authorization: Standardize how AI agents authenticate with resources and control their access levels across applications.
   
• Least privilege enforcement: Enforce least privileged access and continuous evaluation and protection for all AI agent interactions.
   
• Cross-application access (CAA) for AI agents: This new authorization protocol shifts control of app and agent access to the enterprise identity layer. It applies policies in real time to most connections, standardizing data access across systems, and eliminating risky credentials and unmanaged connections.
   

As AI agents become more interconnected and sophisticated, managing their identities becomes the critical foundation for trust and security. Okta's approach helps you ensure that your security framework evolves with your AI deployments, providing unmatched visibility, control, and remediation capabilities.

Join us at Oktane 2025 to learn more about how Okta Secures AI.

These materials are intended for general informational purposes only and are not intended to be legal, privacy, security, compliance, or business advice.

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