In my role as a Senior Corporate Customer Account Executive at Okta, I spend my days managing relationships. While forecasting deals and territory planning are part of the job, the core of what I do is listening. I manage a book of business where customers have already invested with us, and my goal is to ensure they are getting value and solving critical business problems.
Lately, the conversation has shifted. Three years ago, we were focused on standard Single Sign-On (SSO) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Today, almost every time I meet a new executive or stakeholder, the first question they ask is: "What is Okta doing with AI?"
The New Challenge: Non-Human Identities
The push for Artificial Intelligence isn't just a buzzword; it is actively changing how our customers operate. We are seeing a transition where identity security is no longer just about a human typing a password into a portal. It is about securing the agents acting on our behalf.
I recently began discussions with a customer regarding a challenge that is becoming increasingly common among SaaS companies. They have rolled out an internal chatbot—an AI agent—that their teams use to interact with their critical cloud and security environments. This presents a massive security paradox. These AI agents have access to high-risk, sensitive data, yet they don't have a "fingerprint" or a physical token like a human employee does. The question becomes:
How do we govern that access? How do we help ensure that the AI agent accessing your infrastructure is authorized to be there?
Okta’s Approach: Innovation Through Focus
At Okta, we aren't trying to be everything to everyone. We aren't trying to become a device management or endpoint security provider. We stay in our lane: Identity. To solve for the rise of AI agents, we are leveraging our own AI-driven solutions, such as Identity Threat Protection and Adaptive MFA. For customers like the one previously mentioned, Okta is exploring ways to wrap security around those AI interactions. By treating these AI agents as identities that require authentication and governance, we help customers innovate without exposing themselves to potential data breaches or account takeovers.
Building the Trust to Innovate
You cannot simply walk into an account and sell a complex AI security solution without a foundation of trust. That trust is built by solving the "here and now" problems first. Take, for example, our work with a customer in the banking industry. They were facing challenges with their digital user experience and needed to modernize how they handled customer identities. We didn't just sell them a license; we engaged in deep technical discovery. By working to help them implement a highly regulated identity solution using CIBA (Client Initiated Backchannel Authentication), we improved their user experience while supporting their strict compliance requirements. Because we partnered with them to help solve that critical infrastructure problem, we earned the right to continue conversations about what comes next.
Moving Forward
Whether it is fixing a login flow for a major bank or figuring out how to secure an autonomous AI agent for a software firm, the mission remains the same. We are here to help our customers navigate a landscape that changes daily. We are seeing a massive demand for answers regarding AI, and at Okta, we are committed to enabling the secure identity layer that makes that future possible.
