Beyond human identity: Why every AI agent needs a digital passport

Traditionally, identity security was designed only to manage a human workforce. Employees log into applications, request access, complete their work and log out. Historically, the de facto model of identity security has relied on passwords, security codes, identification cards, personal credentials and, more recently, multi-factor authentication. For decades, organisations have trusted these guardrails to ensure the right people have the right level of access to confidential or sensitive information.

But is this enough for the way enterprises operate today?

The new digital co-worker

According to a SailPoint report, 91% of organisations globally are already deploying or planning to deploy AI agents. No longer confined to answering questions or generating content, AI agents are increasingly capable of executing tasks, analysing data and making autonomous decisions with minimal human intervention. As organisations embed them across business functions, the expected benefits are significant: 85% anticipate automating repetitive work, 67% expect better decision-making, and 62% foresee lower operational costs.

As AI agents become digital co-workers embedded across the enterprise, they are fundamentally reshaping how work gets done. In doing so, they are also forcing organisations to rethink one of cybersecurity’s most basic assumptions: what constitutes an identity, and how it should be secured.

Like human employees, AI agents require access to applications, databases and enterprise systems to perform their roles. Unlike humans, however, they can request permission, interact across multiple systems and execute complex workflows in seconds. They can also invoke other machine identities as part of their tasks, creating a rapidly expanding network of interconnected digital identities operating across the enterprise.

Traditional identity security was never designed for this velocity. Static roles, periodic access reviews and one-time authentication decisions were built for a workforce that operated at human speed. Today, machine identities can be spun up, granted privileged access and retired within minutes. As a result, identity security has evolved from a periodic governance function into a continuous, real-time operational discipline.

The pace of change is accelerating with AI adoption moving at breakneck speed. Employees are increasingly adopting unsanctioned AI tools, while software vendors continue embedding AI agents into enterprise applications. Consequently, non-human identities including AI agents, APIs, workloads and service accounts are proliferating far faster than the human workforce, dramatically expanding the identity attack surface.

The rise of the ‘super identity’

Research shows that 99% of cloud identities continue to hold excessive permissions, underscoring the scale of identity sprawl across modern enterprises. AI agents inherit this complexity and can rapidly amplify it. Security researchers describe the emergence of the ‘super identity’, where a single human action sets off a chain of AI agents, service accounts and automated workflows operating across interconnected systems. What begins as one employee initiating a business task can quickly evolve into dozens of autonomous identities requesting access, interacting with sensitive data and making decisions independently. Without end-to-end visibility into this chain of activity, organisations lose sight of who initiated an action, which identities participated and where accountability ultimately resides. Unsurprisingly, 80% of organisations report having experienced AI agents performing unintended actions or accessing sensitive information without explicit authorisation, highlighting why identity governance must evolve for the AI era.

This is precisely why every identity needs what can be best described as a digital passport.

Identity as the new digital passport Just as a physical passport establishes who a person is, where they are authorised to travel and when that permission expires, every digital identity should carry continuously verified information about who or what it represents, what it is allowed to access, why that access has been granted and whether its behaviour remains within approved boundaries.

However, this digital passport cannot be static. It must evolve in real time as identities change roles, request new permissions or interact with sensitive data. Without it, organisations are left managing thousands of identities with little confidence that access remains appropriate.

The urgency is reinforced by regulation. Gartner projects that AI regulations will cover 50% of the world's economies by 2027, while India’s DPDP Act imposes strict mandates for compliance and holds organisations accountable for data privacy.

The next frontier for enterprise security

Identity-first governance is emerging as the only practical framework for managing this new reality. Instead of relying on periodic reviews and static permissions, organisations must shift towards an adaptive identity approach which enables them to continuously evaluate identities, adjust access decisions in real time as risk changes, and maintain absolute visibility across both human and non-human entities.

As an example, SailPoint’s identity-first approach delivers frictionless security through three core pillars; discovering all AI agents to maintain a complete, real-time inventory; governing them by enforcing human ownership and strict access boundaries; and protecting the enterprise using continuous monitoring and Zero Standing Privileges to dynamically grant access, detect anomalies, and automatically revoke excessive permissions. This allows businesses to adopt AI without losing control over security, compliance, or accountability.

AI may redefine how work gets done, but identity security will determine whether that transformation remains secure, accountable, and sustainable. In the agentic era, governing identities is no longer just a security exercise; it is a business imperative.

(The author is Senior Vice President & General Manager, APJ, SailPoint. Views are personal.)