Frameworks from firms like KPMG and AWS emphasize that AI agents must be treated as entities with identities and permissions. A strong IAM foundation is a critical control layer to prevent agents from accessing or unintentionally leaking sensitive information, reflecting a broader shift to treat agents like any other privileged user in an IT ecosystem.

Simply giving an agent a user account is dangerous. An agent creator is liable for its actions, and the agent has no right to privacy. This requires a new identity and access management (IAM) paradigm, distinct from human user accounts, to manage liability and oversight.

Traditional identity models like SAML and OAuth are insufficient for agents. Agent access must be hyper-ephemeral and contextual, granted dynamically based on a specific task. Instead of static roles, agents need temporary permissions to access specific resources only for the duration of an approved task.

Managing human identities is already complex, but the rise of AI agents communicating with systems will multiply this challenge exponentially. Organizations must prepare for managing thousands of "machine identities" with granular permissions, making robust identity management a critical prerequisite for the AI era.

Todd McKinnon conceptualizes AI agents not as simple tools but as a fundamentally new identity category. This identity possesses attributes of both a human user (roles, permissions) and a system (automation, being headless). This reframing is central to building the next generation of enterprise security and access management.

Instead of giving an AI agent full access to your personal accounts, treat it like an employee. Provision it with its own email and calendar, then delegate access to your own. This mental model improves security and simplifies setup.

Instead of a monolithic AI, create a team of agents with specific roles (e.g., 'Debbie the assistant,' 'Soren the engineer'). This human-like model makes it easier to manage capabilities, control access, and conceptualize the system's functions because it maps to our innate understanding of human teams.

As AI agents perform more tasks, managing their roles and permissions within an organization becomes a critical challenge for CIOs. The future HR platform won't just be a system of record for people; it will be the core directory for defining and securing the actions of an entire agentic workforce.

The focus of agent security is shifting from traditional identity and access management (IAM) to governing what an agent *does* with its permissions. Granting an agent access is necessary, but the real challenge is controlling the near-infinite permutations of actions it might take with that access.