AI agents are rapidly reshaping how organizations operate — and how they think about security. In this video conversation, Okta CEO and Co-Founder Todd McKinnon breaks down why identity is the key to unlocking AI’s benefits without opening the door to new risks.
McKinnon highlights the critical role identity security plays in modern cybersecurity, noting that 80% of breaches involve compromised identities. “Identity is security,” he emphasizes, explaining that a robust identity system must seamlessly integrate with an organization’s security stack to help prevent breaches.
As AI agents become integral to workflows — handling tasks in customer support, automation, and software development — McKinnon underscores the unique identity challenges they introduce. These agents require access to service accounts, machine identities, and sensitive resources, making identity security more essential than ever. “If you want the business benefits and the security, you have to secure the identity that all these agents interact with,” he says.
Okta’s answer to this challenge is an identity security fabric, a comprehensive framework designed to provide visibility, control, and threat monitoring across millions of human and machine identities. McKinnon also discusses Cross App Access, an extension of the OAuth protocol that brings visibility and control to both agent-driven and app-to-app interactions.
As AI continues to transform industries, McKinnon notes that Okta is positioned to enable this future. “Agents are a new wave of technology, and it’s only going to work with security — and we’re right at the heart of that,” he says.
For more identity insights, watch the full video above.
