Identity and access management is getting a second look as AI agents move from pilots into production. The rush to deploy them is exposing decades of stitched-together identity tools, integration costs and security gaps that enterprises can no longer ignore.

Security teams face pressure to let the business move fast with AI while keeping control over what agents can reach. Rather than treating that as a brand-new problem, many customers now see agentic security as an extension of identity work they have done for years, according to Jon Addison, chief revenue officer of Okta Inc.

“The power of this technology is enormous,” he said. “[Customers] want to innovate fast. They’re being put under a lot of pressure by the business to do that, but they get that to have security, they need visibility and control, and they see that as highly adjacent to problems that they’ve been solving for years with us around identity.”

Addison spoke with theCUBE Research’s Krista Case and co-host Rebecca Knight at Okta’s Oktane event, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. (* Disclosure below.)

Agents push access management toward consolidation

Many enterprises built their identity stacks piece by piece, and they still spend heavily to keep point solutions talking to one another. Agents raise the stakes on that sprawl, pushing customers to modernize and consolidate before they deploy at scale, Addison noted.

“A lot of those point solutions create vulnerabilities. And so as they prepare for the agentic era, they’re doing a lot of housekeeping. They’re getting their fundamentals right,” Addison said.

Some organizations are agreeing on reference architectures before deploying agents. Others already have shadow agents in production and need urgent help establishing access management controls, according to Addison.

“It is really about efficiency and augmentation for humans and workers,” Addison said. “But there’s going to be a world where autonomous agents start to explode and we’re going to have to start thinking differently about the scale of that.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Okta’s Oktane event:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Okta’s Oktane event. Neither Okta Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE