Identity providers offer foundational IAM capabilities for identity federation and access policy enforcement, flexible authentication factors, and risk-based authentication. They enable organizations to realize greater value from effective workforce identity security controls, streamlined processes, and optimized user experiences (see Figure 17).

Wherever possible, eliminate password-based authentication. More advanced authentication requirements should also leverage adaptive or conditional-based authentication. Enforcement includes added security measures for privileged users, such as IT admins or DevOps teams, and for machine identities such as service accounts, API/microservices, IoT, or bots. For effective enforcement, S&R pros should: Verify explicitly when authenticating and authorizing user access.

The dynamic trust evaluation inherent in Zero Trust (as opposed to static access rules) is a strong foundation for risk-based authentication that adapts to user behavior patterns. Requiring continuous authentication and access verification lends insight into behavioral patterns and increases visibility. In ZT, trust conditions are dynamic and include multiple factors like device, location, software, and credentials, making compromise attempts more likely to stick out.

Most CIAM solutions have offered phishing resistant and passwordless authentication methods, like FIDO passkeys, and contextual, risk-based authentication. To help manage AI agents, CIAM solutions are moving to support continuous intent and context-aware authorization decisions (“who and whose AI agent can access what”).

Organizations are also contending with an increasing volume of identity-based threats, such as deepfake-powered hiring scams and MFA (multifactor authentication)-bypass attacks on supply chains. Caught in the crossfire, security leaders must ensure that users, human and nonhuman alike, have seamless, risk-aware access to critical resources without compromising security or compliance. Successfully deploying a workforce identity security platform is essential to meeting these challenges.

Close key gaps; enforce strong, risk-based authentication; standardize privileged access playbooks and consistent governance. Automate lifecycle processes, leverage external expertise if needed, and continuously review and update IAM controls. Address digital sovereignty requirements.

This is more deterministic than using risk-based authentication and behavioral biometrics, making debugging easier and access policy decisions more explainable and defensible. Intelligence: AI Agents Generate Report Definitions And Compliance Templates Auditing access events to identify and investigate anomalous or risky activity is a key function of IAM solutions. Looking through large volumes of logs is inefficient and requires nonscalable spending on investigation.

Effective IAM orchestration supports customer journeys from registration and verification to authentication and recovery to ensure a smooth and secure experience. IAM solutions enhance digital onboarding with seamless, secure authentication like biometric and passwordless login. They mitigate fraud risks by using behavioral biometrics and risk-based authentication and by integrating specialized identity services and real-time risk analysis.

Solutions like single sign-on (SSO) and passwordless/multifactor authentication (MFA) provide fast time to value, are supported by a wide-ranging ecosystem, and are easy to deploy. Solutions like customer identity and access management (CIAM) allow security leaders to integrate fraud management, privacy/consent management, contextual/risk-based authentication, business analytics, and customer data platforms with the core user management and access policy enforcement functionality of CIAM.

Security and risk (S&R) pros must ensure that agent authentication credentials are not hard-coded in configuration files. AI agent authentication requires that: Human-to-agent authentication includes IDV and MFA. Authenticating human-to-AI interactions requires combining identity management with continuous, context-aware verification to prevent AI from being exploited or impersonated.