Identity and Access Gaps in the Age of Autonomous AI
Released: 03/23/2026
Enterprises are embedding agentic AI across their environments, allowing agents to interact with applications, infrastructure, and data systems. They are no longer experimental tools, but operational actors. This survey report examines how organizations are contending with the challenges of autonomous AI security, specifically when it comes to Identity and Access Management.
The report reveals that AI agent identity tends to operate in a gray area. Agents often borrow human or shared identities rather than being managed as distinct entities. This leads to inherited permissions, fragmented ownership, and expanded attack surfaces, making it difficult to enforce consistent policies or clearly attribute actions.
While organizations express moderate confidence in managing agent access, the underlying controls tell a different story. Gaps in credential management, inconsistent enforcement, and reliance on governance-based safeguards highlight a growing disconnect between perceived readiness and actual control maturity.
The findings underscore a critical need to evolve IAM practices to support autonomous systems. As AI agents scale, identity-centric controls, least privilege access, and real-time visibility will be essential.
Key Takeaways:
- AI agents are already operating across core enterprise systems and workflows
- Most AI agents lack distinct identities and inherit existing permissions
- Fragmented ownership of AI agent access leads to inconsistent controls
- Confidence in AI security often exceeds actual IAM maturity
- AI agents expand the attack surface through over-privileged access
- Governance is compensating for missing identity-centric controls
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Best For:
- CISOs and security leaders
- Identity and Access Management professionals
- Cloud security architects
- DevSecOps and platform engineering teams
- Risk and compliance professionals
About the Sponsor
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Aembit is the non-human identity and access management company. Backed by $45 million in total funding, including a recent $25 million Series A round, Aembit is defining how applications and services securely connect across clouds, SaaS, and data centers. Recently recognized as a runner-up in the 2024 RSA Innovation Sandbox competition, Aembit – headquartered in Silver Spring, Md., and operating as an all-remote company – protects today’s complex, distributed, and automated environments by eliminating reliance on credentials, enabling secretless identity and access management between software workloads and empowering companies to innovate and grow without limits.
