The exponential rise of artificial intelligence agents is fundamentally reshaping enterprise security paradigms. As organizations embrace AI-driven automation, a critical vulnerability emerges: non-human identities (NHIs) now operate with superhuman speed and privileged access across systems, creating unprecedented security challenges that traditional identity management frameworks cannot address.
The Standing Privilege Problem
According to IDC projections, the identity security market will nearly double from $29 billion in 2025 to $56 billion by 2029, reflecting the urgency with which enterprises must adapt. This growth is driven by the proliferation of AI agents, service accounts, and machine identities that dynamically access sensitive data, applications, and compute resources across distributed cloud environments.
The fundamental problem lies in legacy access models. Traditional identity security relies on static policies and standing privileges—permissions that persist regardless of changing threat conditions. When AI agents operate autonomously with these permanent access rights, organizations face continuous exposure. A compromised AI agent with standing privileges can move laterally across systems, exfiltrate data, or execute malicious actions before human security teams can respond.
Moving to Continuous Identity
CrowdStrike’s proposed acquisition of SGNL, announced this week, signals a strategic industry shift toward “Continuous Identity”—a model where access is continuously granted and revoked based on real-time risk assessment. This approach eliminates standing privileges by dynamically evaluating identity, device posture, and behavioral signals to make moment-by-moment access decisions.
For Indian CISOs navigating digital transformation initiatives, the implications are clear: identity security must evolve from periodic reviews and static role assignments to continuous, risk-aware authorization. As agentic workforces expand, every AI agent becomes a privileged identity requiring sophisticated protection.
The path forward demands integrating identity threat detection and response (ITDR) with privileged access management (PAM) to achieve unified, hybrid-environment coverage. Organizations must implement just-in-time access controls, continuous access evaluation protocols, and real-time threat intelligence to secure both human and non-human identities in the AI era.
