AI Agents Are Creating an Identity Security Crisis in 2026
Identity and access management is a long-standing challenge for security leaders, and the introduction of AI, agentic AI, and nonhuman identities (NHI) will exacerbate IAM challenges for CISOs in 2026. According to our recent AI Heading into 2026 report, most businesses still lack up-to-date, role-based access control capabilities, and AI will make an already difficult problem significantly harder.
DOWNLOAD NOW: AI Heading into 2026
How Agentic AI Challenges IAM
The rise of agentic AI has transformed IAM and RBAC into a critical vulnerability. In conversations with CISOs across the IANS community, a theme has emerged: the shift to agentic AI is forcing a reckoning with IAM fundamentals that many organizations had been deferring. “Identity Assurance for an AI World” ranked as the second-highest priority among CISOs surveyed heading into 2026, scoring a 4.46 out of 5, just behind using AI on the security team itself.
AI is adding to the identity burden, especially the rise of agentic AI, is escalating the number of identities organizations need to manage, regardless of the scale of their human workforce. In our conversations with CISOs, there is a clear emphasis on modernizing and scaling IAM capabilities in light of NHIs. Setting up user roles is like building a configuration management database, but the process of inventorying assets (identities that need to be managed), developing the correct policies, and verifying permissions are configured correctly is incredibly long and complex.
The report also notes that AI is accelerating the pace of change broadly. Attackers are refining tactics faster, capabilities are evolving faster, and organizations are shifting their risk appetite more quickly. For identity teams, that acceleration means the window to get NHI governance right is narrowing.
READ MORE: Is Your Identity Framework Ready for Agentic AI?
How Does MCP Factor Into IAM
The implication is that Model Context Protocol solutions and agentic platforms are arriving faster than most organizations’ IAM infrastructure can accommodate them. Current authentication and authorization patterns create real exposure, and organizations that haven't started thinking about how MCP fits into their identity governance model are already behind.
“[Model Context Protocol] will be the AI-related security issue of 2026. Granular OAuth consents disrupt the user experience and constrained delegation still allows for token misuse. We’re already seeing developers try to overcome these limitations with AuthN/AuthZ patterns that look like they belong in ‘Hello World’ examples, not enterprise applications,” says IANS Faculty Jake Williams.
What Are CISOs IAM Strategies
The report points to automation as the primary lever CISOs are pulling to address the growing IAM burden. Organizations are actively looking for ways to automate and advance their IAM capabilities in 2026, recognizing that manual processes cannot keep pace with the rate at which new identities, human and nonhuman, are being created.
The report also highlights that IAM investment scales significantly with organizational size. Data from the IANS and Artico Search CISO Compensation and Budget Survey shows that IAM staff and compensation consumes 6% of the security budget at organizations with less than $400M in annual revenue, rising to 12% at organizations above $5B. That gap underscores a real disparity in capacity to address the NHI challenge across the market.
For CISOs, the identity challenge heading into 2026 isn’t a new problem; it’s an old problem being stress-tested by new technology at unprecedented scale. The report frames this push toward IAM fundamentals as a continuing theme as AI disrupts different aspects of enterprise operations. Organizations that treat this moment as an opportunity to finally get identity governance right will be better positioned than those waiting for a perfect solution.
The Top AI Priorities for CISOs
IANS’ latest report, AI Heading into 2026, provides objective, data-driven insights from IANS community polls and cross-industry CISOs to see how today’s security leaders are approaching AI in practice. This report reveals the evolving standards shaping AI policy and governance, and how CISOs are tightening access while building business-aligned oversight. Learn more about how security leaders are redefining AI vendor strategy, and the top AI-driven priorities commanding executive focus in 2026. Download AI Heading into 2026 and access objective, data-driven insights from IANS community polls and hard-won lessons from CISOs who are actively implementing AI in their organizations.
Although reasonable efforts will be made to ensure the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in our blog posts, no liability can be accepted by IANS or our Faculty members for the results of any actions taken by individuals or firms in connection with such information, opinions, or advice.