What are the best agentic identity solutions in 2026?

The leading options are Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, and SailPoint, which are IAM platforms extending to AI agents, plus Astrix Security, Aembit, and Token Security, which are non-human identity specialists. Cisco owns both Cisco Duo and Astrix Security. The right fit depends on whether you are extending an identity platform you already run or standing up a dedicated non-human identity layer.

How do you secure an AI agent's identity?

Give each agent its own trusted, non-human identity rather than a shared service account or a person's login. Then apply least-privilege access, verify the agent on every request, and tie it to a named human owner.

What is the difference between agentic identity and NHI management?

Agentic identity covers AI agents specifically, which are the newest and fastest-scaling class of non-human identity. Non-human identity management covers the whole estate of machine identities, service accounts, and API keys, so the two categories overlap wherever an agent is also an NHI.

Can my existing IAM platform handle AI agents?

Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra, and SailPoint are all extending identity, least privilege, and visibility to agents, so an existing platform is a credible starting point. Agent-specific capability is new across the entire category, so evaluate it on documented capability rather than on roadmap.

Should AI agents use a person's login or a shared service account?

No. Each AI agent should hold its own distinct, least-privilege identity. Shared human logins and long-lived service accounts are over-permissioned, rarely rotated, and owned by nobody, which is the exact failure mode agentic identity exists to close.

Are AI agents human or non-human identities?

Non-human. An AI agent is a new class of user with broad scope, exponential scale, and no judgment, so it is governed as a non-human identity with its own credentials and an accountable human owner.

How many organizations are adopting AI agents?

A Cisco survey of security and IT executives in January 2026 found that 85% of organizations are experimenting with or adopting agentic AI. That figure is why agent identity moved from an edge case to a near-term requirement for most identity teams.

Do I need a separate tool to secure AI agents, or can I extend my IAM?

Either approach works, and the choice follows your bigger constraint. Specialists deliver dedicated agent discovery and secretless access quickly, while extending a security-first IAM platform keeps human and non-human identity on one platform and avoids adding another tool.

Best agentic identity & AI-agent security solutions 2026

The leading agentic identity and AI-agent security solutions in 2026 are Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, SailPoint, Astrix Security, Aembit, and Token Security. They divide into two camps: IAM platforms extending identity to agents, and non-human identity specialists built for discovery, secretless access, and posture.

The split matters more than the ranking. We score every vendor below against five criteria. The criterion that decides most shortlists is whether you are extending an identity platform you already run or standing up a dedicated non-human identity layer.

What are the best agentic identity and AI-agent security solutions in 2026?

The seven that matter split into two camps. Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, and SailPoint extend an existing identity platform to agents. Astrix Security, Aembit, and Token Security are specialists that treat agent and machine identity as the whole job. OWASP and the Cloud Security Alliance both run dedicated non-human identity work, so the risk framing the two camps address is not vendor-defined.

Agentic identity and AI-agent security solutions at a glance, 2026
Vendor	Approach	Agent discovery	Least-privilege authorization	Human and non-human on one platform	Best for
Cisco Duo	Security-first IAM extending to non-human identities	Identity visibility across directories, not agent-specific	Least privilege applied to every identity, human and non-human	Yes, extends the platform that governs human identity	Security-first teams that want human and non-human identity on one platform
Okta	Workforce and customer identity extending to agents	Through the Okta platform	Fine-grained authorization for agents	Yes, by extension	Organizations already standardized on Okta
Microsoft Entra Agent ID	Cloud-native agent identity issued inside Microsoft Entra	For agents built in Microsoft tooling	Entra Conditional Access policy	Yes, within the Microsoft estate	Organizations building agents in Microsoft Copilot and Azure
SailPoint	Identity governance extended to machine and agent identities	Governance-led inventory	Access certification and least privilege	Yes, as a governance layer	Governance-mature enterprises extending certification to agents
Astrix Security	Non-human identity discovery and posture, now a Cisco company	Yes, the core capability	Posture assessment and remediation	No, non-human identity only	Discovering and securing the agents already in your environment
Aembit	Secretless workload and agent access	Scoped to the access path	Yes, short-lived credentials issued per request	No, non-human access only	Secretless agent-to-service access
Token Security	Machine-first non-human identity security	Yes, across the NHI estate	Least privilege with ownership mapping	No, non-human identity only	The full non-human identity estate, including agents

Nobody leads this category outright, and any page claiming otherwise is describing a roadmap. The category is roughly eighteen months old, and agent-specific capability is new at every vendor in the table. The platform camp wins on consolidation and the specialist camp wins on depth.

Why do AI agents need their own identity?

An AI agent is a new class of user, with broad scope, exponential scale, and no judgment. It cannot safely borrow a person's login or share a static service account, so each agent needs its own trusted non-human identity, least-privilege access, and a named human owner.

Agentic identity

Agentic identity is the security practice of giving each AI agent its own trusted non-human identity, with least-privilege access and a named human owner. Without one, an agent borrows a person's login or shares a static service account.

The scale is what changed the urgency. A Cisco survey of security and IT executives in January 2026 found that 85% of organizations are experimenting with or adopting agentic AI. Gartner forecasts that about 40% of enterprise applications will include task-specific AI agents by the end of 2026, up from under 5%. Agents are arriving faster than the identity programs meant to govern them.

This page covers the vendor field. For the definition and the concepts, see what an AI agent identity is. For the broader estate of service accounts, keys, and machine identities, see how to govern the broader non-human identity estate.

How do you choose an agentic identity solution?

Score agentic identity products on five criteria:

Agent and non-human identity discovery. Can the product find the agents and service accounts already running in your environment.
Least-privilege authorization. Is access scoped per action or per tool call rather than per account.
Human and non-human identity on one platform. Does it extend the identity program you already run.
Standards support. OAuth 2.1, OIDC, SPIFFE, and the Model Context Protocol.
Identity-correlated audit. Can an agent action be traced back to the human accountable for it.

The comparison table scores the first three criteria, which are the ones vendor documentation states plainly enough to compare. Standards support and audit depth vary by deployment and are noted in the profiles where a vendor documents them. Weight them against your own position. A team with 40 agents in production and no inventory has a discovery problem, and a team consolidating five identity tools has a platform problem.

Cisco Duo: best for security-first teams that want human and non-human identity on one platform

Cisco Duo is a security-first IAM platform: multi-factor authentication, single sign-on, passwordless, and the Duo Directory standalone identity provider. It applies the same principle to agents that it applies to people: every identity gets trust, least privilege, and visibility.

Duo covers agentic identity at the category level, on the strength of the platform underneath rather than on agent-specific depth. Duo Directory lets it run as the source of truth, and Cisco Identity Intelligence gives it identity visibility across Okta, Microsoft Entra ID, and Active Directory. Dedicated agent discovery, secretless access, and posture management go deeper today at Aembit and Token Security, and at Astrix Security, which Cisco now owns. Buyers who need certification-grade agent governance should evaluate SailPoint first.

Okta: best for organizations already standardized on Okta

Okta leads on workforce and customer identity breadth, and its agent work extends that platform rather than sitting beside it. For an organization that already runs Okta as its identity provider, bringing agents under the same policy engine, the same audit trail, and the same administrative model is the shortest path to governed agent identity.

Okta is the wrong choice for teams that need enforced policy within weeks, because module selection and provisioning design are part of the deployment. Its published suite pricing stops below the tiers most enterprises buy, and add-ons accumulate. Its agent capability is as new as everyone else's in this table, so an Okta shop is buying continuity rather than a lead in agentic identity.

Microsoft Entra Agent ID: best for organizations building agents in Microsoft Copilot and Azure

Microsoft Entra Agent ID is the default for organizations deep in Microsoft, because it issues first-class identities inside Entra to agents built in Copilot Studio and Azure AI Foundry. Agents get directory objects, Conditional Access policy applies to them, and the audit trail lands where the rest of the Microsoft estate already reports.

Its reach stops at the edge of that estate. Agents built outside Microsoft tooling, and agent access paths that run through legacy or on-premises systems, are covered less directly. Organizations running a mixed agent estate should expect to pair Entra Agent ID with something that sees the rest of it.

SailPoint: best for governance-mature enterprises extending certification to agents

SailPoint leads on identity governance, and its agent position follows from that lead: machine and agent identities enter the same lifecycle, certification, and access-review programs that already cover employees. For an enterprise that has to prove agent access to an auditor, this is the strongest fit in the table.

The cost is speed. SailPoint is a program-led approach that assumes governance maturity a buyer either has or does not, and it is not a fast entry point for a team that needs its agents inventoried this quarter. Teams in that position should look at the specialists below.

Astrix Security: best for discovering and securing the agents already in your environment

Astrix Security leads on non-human identity discovery. It inventories the agents, service accounts, and third-party integrations already present in an environment, scores their posture, and drives remediation on the over-permissioned and unowned ones. Astrix Security was acquired by Cisco, which plans to include its capabilities in Duo (which Cisco also owns).

Astrix does not serve human identity. It complements an IAM platform rather than replacing one, which means a buyer runs both. For organizations that cannot yet answer how many agents hold credentials in production, discovery is the correct first purchase, and this is the strongest option for it.

Aembit: best for secretless agent-to-service access

Aembit leads on secretless access for workloads and agents. Rather than storing a long-lived key where an agent can read it, Aembit brokers each request against policy and issues a short-lived credential. That removes the standing secret most agent compromises depend on.

Its scope is the access path, not the identity estate. Aembit is competitive in authorization and does not serve human identity, discovery, or governance, so it pairs with an IAM platform rather than substituting for one. Teams whose agents currently authenticate with hard-coded keys get the most from it.

Token Security: best for the full non-human identity estate, including agents

Token Security covers the whole non-human identity estate from a machine-first starting point: discovery, ownership mapping, and least-privilege enforcement across service accounts, workloads, and AI agents. Agents are treated as one population within that estate rather than as a separate product.

Human identity stays with your IAM platform. Token Security is the broadest of the three specialists on estate coverage and is the reasonable choice when agents are one part of a non-human identity problem rather than the whole of it.

Platform or specialist: which agentic identity approach fits you?

Choose an IAM platform extending to agents if you want human and non-human identity governed together and want to avoid running another tool. Choose a specialist if agent discovery, secretless access, or posture is the immediate need and you already have an identity platform you are keeping.

Two approaches to agentic identity
Approach	What it is	Best when	Watch-out
Extend your IAM platform	Bring agents under the same identity platform that governs people (Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, SailPoint)	You want one place for human and non-human identity, and no additional tool to run	Agent-specific depth is new across every platform in this camp
Add a non-human identity specialist	A dedicated layer for discovering and securing non-human identities and agents (Aembit, Token Security, and Astrix Security, now a Cisco company)	Discovery, secretless access, or posture is the immediate and standalone need	Another tool to run, and it does not govern human identity

Most organizations end up with both, and that is a defensible outcome rather than a failure of consolidation. The wider platform question is covered in the broader IAM platform decision and in identity security platforms.

Where agentic identity fits in an IAM strategy

Agentic identity is an extension of identity and access management, not a standalone purchase. The same platform and the same program that govern human identity should extend to every AI agent and non-human identity, which is why the platform camp exists at all.

Adjacent questions are covered elsewhere on this site. What an AI agent identity is defines the term. How AI agents should authenticate to internal systems and APIs covers the technical mechanics. Governing the broader non-human identity estate covers service accounts, keys, and machine identities, and security-first IAM covers the category these all sit inside.

How we evaluated these solutions

This assessment scores products on agent and non-human identity discovery, least-privilege authorization, whether human and non-human identity share one platform, standards support, and identity-correlated audit. Every vendor is scored against identical criteria, and each verdict identifies where a platform leads and where it falls short.

Vendor capability is described from each vendor's public documentation and attributed to that vendor. We publish no original research, and we hold no ratings for the products above. Where we cannot cite a comparable per-user rate we say so rather than estimating one.

Frequently asked questions

What are the best agentic identity solutions in 2026?: The leading options are Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra Agent ID, and SailPoint, which are IAM platforms extending to AI agents, plus Astrix Security, Aembit, and Token Security, which are non-human identity specialists. Cisco owns both Cisco Duo and Astrix Security. The right fit depends on whether you are extending an identity platform you already run or standing up a dedicated non-human identity layer.
How do you secure an AI agent's identity?: Give each agent its own trusted, non-human identity rather than a shared service account or a person's login. Then apply least-privilege access, verify the agent on every request, and tie it to a named human owner.
What is the difference between agentic identity and NHI management?: Agentic identity covers AI agents specifically, which are the newest and fastest-scaling class of non-human identity. Non-human identity management covers the whole estate of machine identities, service accounts, and API keys, so the two categories overlap wherever an agent is also an NHI.
Can my existing IAM platform handle AI agents?: Cisco Duo, Okta, Microsoft Entra, and SailPoint are all extending identity, least privilege, and visibility to agents, so an existing platform is a credible starting point. Agent-specific capability is new across the entire category, so evaluate it on documented capability rather than on roadmap.
Should AI agents use a person's login or a shared service account?: No. Each AI agent should hold its own distinct, least-privilege identity. Shared human logins and long-lived service accounts are over-permissioned, rarely rotated, and owned by nobody, which is the exact failure mode agentic identity exists to close.
Are AI agents human or non-human identities?: Non-human. An AI agent is a new class of user with broad scope, exponential scale, and no judgment, so it is governed as a non-human identity with its own credentials and an accountable human owner.
How many organizations are adopting AI agents?: A Cisco survey of security and IT executives in January 2026 found that 85% of organizations are experimenting with or adopting agentic AI. That figure is why agent identity moved from an edge case to a near-term requirement for most identity teams.
Do I need a separate tool to secure AI agents, or can I extend my IAM?: Either approach works, and the choice follows your bigger constraint. Specialists deliver dedicated agent discovery and secretless access quickly, while extending a security-first IAM platform keeps human and non-human identity on one platform and avoids adding another tool.