The Rise of AI Agents: A New Kind of Identity That’s Leaving Organizations Behind
A growing number of organizations are struggling to keep pace with the emergence of AI agents, a new kind of identity that’s changing the way we think about security and governance. These non-human identities are not just another type of service account or API token; they’re fundamentally different in how they operate and require a fundamentally different approach to management.
At their core, AI agents are designed to make decisions and adapt to situations on their own, often at speeds and scales that break traditional governance models. They can touch repositories, trigger pipelines, and deploy code without human oversight or even an audit trail. This level of autonomy is not just a variation on the service account problem; it’s a completely new class of risk.
The reason many organizations are struggling to keep up is that their existing security tools were simply not built to see or govern AI agents. These non-human identities operate at a speed and scale that breaks every governance model we’ve built, forcing organizations to rethink how they approach identity management.
One area where this issue is particularly acute is in the development environment. As more organizations adopt AI-powered coding assistants like GitHub Copilot, Cursor, and Claude, the line between human and machine is becoming increasingly blurred. While these tools help developers write faster and catch issues earlier, they also introduce new risks that security teams are still trying to grasp.
But it’s not just about the coding assistant phase. The real concern is when AI agents start writing code, running tests, opening pull requests, approving merges, and triggering pipeline deployments without human oversight. This is where things get particularly worrying for organizations, as autonomous agents can introduce risks that were previously unimaginable.
The average organization has around 22 distinct AI agent projects spanning IT, legal, compliance, sales, and more. That’s a lot of autonomous activity with a lot of unanswered questions about who is governing it. It’s no wonder that most security teams are struggling to keep up.
So what can organizations do to prepare for this new reality? First and foremost, they need to recognize the distinction between AI agents and traditional non-human identities. This requires a fundamentally different approach to governance, one that borrows from both human and machine management models but goes further than either.
This is not just about tweaking existing security tools; it’s about building entirely new ones that can see and govern AI agents in real-time. It’s also about rethinking the way we approach identity management, including provisioning, monitoring, governing, and deprovisioning AI agents with superhuman capabilities.
Ultimately, the rise of AI agents is a wake-up call for organizations to rethink their security posture and governance models. By recognizing the unique challenges posed by these non-human identities and taking proactive steps to address them, organizations can avoid being left behind in this rapidly evolving landscape.
Source: Dark Reading — 2026-07-09