Token Sprawl in the Age of AI

Published 02/18/2026

If your organization is experimenting with AI agents, copilots, or AI services accessed via API, you’ve probably created more identities than you intended. These non-human identities (service accounts and their associated API keys, tokens, etc.) keep modern systems talking to each other.

CSA’s new survey report, commissioned by Oasis Security, shows that token sprawl and inadequate rotation of identities have created a persistent blast radius. When AI workflows can create and use credentials at high velocity, “we’ll rotate it later” becomes the identity security equivalent of “we’ll fix it in prod.” Below, learn more about growing non-human identity (NHI) trends and the practical actions you can take to shrink token sprawl.

What “token sprawl” actually looks like right now

Token sprawl is the uncontrolled growth of API keys, tokens, service accounts, and other machine credentials across cloud environments, CI/CD pipelines, SaaS tools, and AI tools.

A few results from the survey put numbers to what many teams already feel:

Inventory gaps persist: More than 16% of organizations said they do not track the creation of new AI-related identities. This leaves tokens and service accounts outside formal inventory.
Slow remediation extends exposure windows: Nearly one-quarter (24%) take more than 24 hours to rotate or revoke a credential after potential exposure.
Slow triage expands risk: 30% take over a day to triage a high-severity credential leak.
The manual toil is a burden: 29% spend more than 24 hours each month managing, auditing, and reviewing NHIs.

But without reliable tracking, timely rotation, or automated revocation, tokens can remain valid long after the systems or agents that created them have been disabled. In other words, the agent might be gone, the pilot project might be over, but the credential is still alive. Attackers love these quiet access points that persist across environments.

Why AI makes token sprawl worse (even if your IAM looks “fine” on paper)

Traditional NHI sprawl is already hard. AI adds accelerants that turn a bad situation into a scale problem.

1) AI increases identity creation speed and widens the attack surface

AI increases the speed and volume of identity creation, widening the operational attack surface. If your environment already struggles to consistently inventory and govern service accounts and tokens, AI workloads can multiply that pressure quickly.

2) “Ephemeral project, permanent credential” becomes the default

Untracked credentials can persist undetected, often linked to ephemeral projects or integrations that never receive ongoing review. This is especially relevant to AI rollouts, which frequently begin as pilots, proofs of concept, or “temporary” toolchains, and then quietly become business-critical.

3) Legacy friction collides with AI speed

Confidence in legacy IAM keeping up is low. Only 8% expressed high confidence that legacy IAM can manage AI/NHI risks. Nearly half were only “somewhat confident” in legacy IAM's abilities. That mismatch appears downstream as manual steps, disconnected workflows, and slow remediation once a credential leaks.

Why “rotate within 24 hours” is a dangerous comfort blanket

The survey report highlights that many organizations are also slow to start responding in the first place. Nearly one-quarter take more than a day to rotate/revoke after potential exposure. Almost one-third take more than a day to triage a high-severity credential leak. In high-velocity AI environments, those delays dramatically extend the exposure window and increase the likelihood of lateral movement.

This aligns with broader security principles: secrets are everywhere, people mishandle them, and they need disciplined lifecycle management.

Token sprawl isn’t just “more keys,” but a bigger, persistent blast radius

A “persistent blast radius” is what happens when you combine:

Incomplete inventory (you don’t track all created identities)
Slow rotation/revocation
Heavy manual overhead (24+ hours/month just to keep up)

The blast radius becomes “persistent” because the credentials outlive their original contexts. They become quiet access points that persist across environments and often escape detection.

Five practical moves to shrink token sprawl (without pretending you can boil the ocean)

You won't solve this problem with one-off cleanups. Here are five practical steps:

1) Make “tracking at creation” non-negotiable

Centralize creation events (cloud audit logs, CI/CD logs, SaaS admin logs)
Require registration/metadata for tokens and service accounts tied to AI workloads
Treat “unknown origin” credentials as a finding (not a curiosity)

2) Shorten credential lifetimes by default

Prefer short-lived tokens with automated renewal
Reduce static API keys
Adopt lifecycle planning approaches similar to NIST key-management concepts (generation, protection, rollover, compromise recovery)

3) Automate revocation paths for “suspected exposure”

Pre-authorize automated revocation for high-confidence exposure signals
Practice the playbook (tabletops that end with “and then we revoke it” don’t count unless the team can actually do it)

4) Tie every AI identity to an owner

Require an owning team for every token/service account
Set expirations and renewal with justification
Define “who can kill it” ahead of time

5) Treat NHI work as risk reduction, not “maintenance”

Track “time to rotate” and “time to revoke” like you track MTTR
Prioritize automation that removes repetitive steps (discovery, inventory, ownership assignment, revocation)
Use metrics to justify investment

AI identity security is identity security at AI speed

Every new integration, model, or workflow introduces additional credentials and permissions, expanding the attack surface. Secrets are created faster than they’re governed, tracked, rotated, or retired. The solution is to: