Identity and Access Management (IAM)

Identity and Access Management (IAM) is how an organization defines who and what exists in its systems and what each identity is permitted to do - authentication, authorization, roles, and the lifecycle of credentials. It is the backbone of enterprise security, the layer that answers 'who is this, and what may they touch?'

AI strains IAM because a model or agent usually acts under one shared service account with broad standing access, erasing the real principal behind a request. Extending identity to AI means binding every prompt, retrieval, and tool call to a verified caller and purpose - so access is scoped to the request in front of it, and the audit trail names an identity rather than a shared key.